The Glyphstone
2006-02-13, 08:52 PM
My tavern contest entry.
Part 1: Arrival
Part 2: The Tavern
Part 3: Tassym Karyon
Part 4: The Glyphstone
Part 5: Other Buildings and NPCs
Part 6: Information and Quests
Arrival
As you crest over the hill, an object just ahead immediately catches your eye – or tries to. Unfortunately, your eye does not seem to want to be caught, finding it difficult to focus on the irregular-shaped monolith atop the nearby mound. You also see the sprawling inn and tavern, with the handful of surrounding buildings, and no further confirmation is necessary. This is what you have come to visit, for some reason or another - the little-understood artifact known wide as the Glyphstone, and the Gate that hosts its visitors. Packs are shouldered, and/or horses spurred, and you trudge downward towards a hot meal, and a warm bed – and perhaps, a mystery.
http://www.pbase.com/image/56561025/original.jpg
The Gate to the Glyphstone is a well-built and prosperous tavern/inn, set up to service the travellers who came in search of its namesake - a strange, monolithic artifact from beyond the edges of time known simply as the Glyphstone. The main building is three stories tall, the bottom being devoted to the tavern area, and the upper two rooms for the weary. Two smaller buildings on either side hold yet more rooms, and storage areas - traffic can become quite crowded at certain times in the year, and it is a point of pride that the Gate never turns anyone away.
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The Tavern
The sign over the door is unusual - the item in the foreground is clearly a porticullis-style gate in black, but it is superimposed over a blurry, crude blob with lighter dots that seemes far too amateur for an establishment such as this. Shrugging, you open the doors to the largest building, and are immediately assailed by a combination of sound, smells, and heat. The sounds are pleasant, the general bustle of a busy and popular inn. The smells are delicious, those of finely cooked food and equally fine ales in copious amounts. And the heat...well, after a long and difficult journey, whether on foot or horseback, the relaxing warmth is very welcome indeed. Patrons of all shapes, sizes, races, and dresses fill the tables, including a small group of darkly robed and masked figures who huddle in a corner away from the light, hunched over what might be large tomes. Behind the bar is a tall, thin elf, who is busily filling and refilling the various tankards of the people at the counter.
The first floor of the Gate is the tavern, primarily devoted to a large, open area with a number of large tables. Smaller tables, for private groups, line the sides of the room, often occupied by adventurers or mysterious old men. The staff keep a close eye on the room, so new arrivals usually need only take a seat before a server will come and deliver them a short scroll with the latest menu, and read it to them if necessary.
1st Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56511642/medium.jpg
After paying for your rooms and enjoying a hearty meal, you trudge upstairs. The rooms are conveniently numbered on the doors, so finding the one that matches your key is easy by the light of the wall-mounted lamps. Inside, it is sparsely furnished, but cozy, with a bed, table, and wardrobe, and possibly a shelf on the wall.
The second and third floors are virtually identical, cramming as many rooms in as possible. The rooms themselves are not terribly large, but comfortable enough. Rooms are cleaned daily by the staff.
2nd Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56335289/medium.jpg
3rd Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56335292/medium.jpg
Beyond the door, the kitchen is almost stiflingly hot. Four large ovens give off the smell of baking food, and employees prepare more food at the counters.
PC's won't normally be exploring the kitchen, unless they are on the trail of the mysterious cultists (see Quests, below). Inside, it is very busy, far too much so for anyone to take time out to talk to the PC's unless business is slow. An off-duty barmaid or two can sometimes be persuaded into sharing the latest rumors. The hatch covering the stairs to the basement is locked, requiring either the key (always on the person of Tassym Karyon, who will be very reluctant to give it up) or a DC30 Open Lock check.
Kitchen:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56513865/original.jpg
Down the stairs from the kitchen, the basement is dimly lit and gloomy. Dust in varying thickness covers everything, getting more prevalent as you move further away from the entryway.
Staff venture into the basement only to refill the liquor bottles and fetch various supplies - the former happening much more often than the latter. As such, the dust grows very thick after the second room of casks, with no footprints to mark anyone's passage. A closer look, however...
Gaming Note: If pursuing the mysterious cultists (see Quests, below), a DC25 Spot check (remember penalties for illumination) will find occasional streaks in the dust on the walls, leading toward the last storage room. Cultists going to meet in their hidden chamber use Pass Without Trace, but sometimes touch the wall to navigate in darkness. Inside the storage room, a large crate blocks the back wall. A DC25 Search check will uncover the secret door, and its oepning mechanism.
Basement:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56513868/original.jpg
Specialty Items
The menu of the Gate to the Glyphstone changes periodically, depending on the available supplies, but it is always delicious. The various stews and soups cooked by the staff are notable, and the cellars contain a vast assortment of wines, ales, and other liquors. The one standard on the menu that never changes is the House Lamb, a healthy serving of meat soaked in different sauces with vegetable garnish. The meat is always fresh, cut from the herd of young sheep in the pen nearby the tavern. They are always killed and served before their first year, but new ones always replace them, brought in from outside. There are never any adult animals kept at the Gate for long periods of time.
http://www.seasonsrestaurant.nl/pic/menu/Lamskoteletjes.jpg
The other item the Gate is noted for is one a bit more permanent than its lamb. Normally, drinks are served in simple wooden mugs, sturdy but uninteresting. But patrons who purchase a sufficient amount of food or drink are typically given a complementary mug as a souveneir to take with them when they leave. These are carved from black stone in imitation of the Glyphstone itself, though this material is a more mundance alloy of obsidian, slate, and various minerals. It remains very firm, with a shiny black luster that persists unless the mug is sufficiently dirtied to obscure it. The sides are carved with inked runes like those covering the monolith, though these are nonmagical and unchanging and simply display the name of the tavern in dozens of different languages. Each mug is carved with a unique number on the bottom, including its year of issue, and those who bring a previous year's mug to the tavern recieve their first fill free. On the inside of the mug is one final surprise, a glowing Arcane Mark inscribed on the inside at the very bottom that almost exactly matches the tavern's sign - a reminder to the owner every time they down a drink of where that cup came from.
http://www.pbase.com/image/56688599/original.jpg
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Tassym Karyon (Tass-him Kar-ee-on)
http://www.pbase.com/image/56564120/original.jpg
The apparent proprietor of the main establishment nods in greeting as you enter the building. He is an elf, with the angular features of most of his race, though even more gaunt than average. He seems perfectly normal, if a bit distant, but those eyes...the faint, barely noticable light in the background seems to hint at something underneath the surface, a slight touch of madness best left unprobed...
Tassym Karyon was a member of a fairly skilled adventuring group, who chanced upon the Glyphstone in the midst of their travels. Most of his companions were indifferent to the unnatural object (the party's druid in particular), but Tassym felt a strange attraction to it. When the team later dissolved, the elf returned to the Glyphstone to plumb its mysteries and try to learn the secrets of the arcane runes on its sides, which his Geometer learnings had convinced him held untold knowledge of magical workings.
He made a small dwelling near the stone, and soon found that he was not the only pilgrim to visit it on occasion. Other visitors came, and their natures ranged far and wide. He met some fellow Geometers, likewise trying to pierce the veil of mystery over its writings. Others were mighty warriors, who had heard of the unnatural rock of unbreakable stone and sought to test their weapons against it - many of them came, and all trudged away in defeat with the shattered fragments of their hammers and blades. A startling number were very mysterious, cloaked and often masked, arriving in silence and treating the Glyphstone as more of an idol to be worshipped, venerating it before leaving in the same quiet manner; however, Tassym took no notice of them and they rapidly faded from memory.
Occasionally, he hosted his fellow scholars, giving them food and a place to rest overnight, and after a time, it occurred to him that this could prove to be a profitable endeavour. He labored with the aid of summoned creatures and hired strong warriors to help him build a small inn, which he opened for business as a service to all who sought the Glyphstone's teachings - this point was where he began considering his enigmatic neighbor as a being, not simply an object, though the transition was totally unconscious. The inn was an excellent investment, business actually increased as visitors and patrons told others they met of the ancient artifact that now had a place for travellers to recuperate at when they arrived.
Within a few years, the Glyphstone's Gate, as it became known, had expanded to several floors, with an attached stable, and a couple of similarly minded entrepreneurs had set up shop nearby, resulting in one of the most prestigious and well-developed inns for many miles around. Bandit attacks are virtually unheard of - this may have something to do with the propensity of skilled adventurers that frequented the area, but the effect is more likely some unfathomable property of the Glyphstone itself, the aura having existed long before the inn became famous.
Now Tassym lives in his inn, overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the small community, and day by day moving millimeters towards madness borne of constant exposure to the warping influences of the Glyphstone. He has not cast a summoning spell in years, so remains unaware of his ability to summon unnatural creatures, and would likely be horrified if he found out.
(Gaming Notes:
Tassym's Stat Summary:
Grey Elf Abjurer 6/Geometer 5/Alienist 3
Str 10, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 18, Wis 9, Cha 12
Banned schools: Necromancy, Enchantment
Spellbook: Mixed for a 14th-level arcane caster, up to 7th level spells. He favors defensive spells mixed with a few powerful evocations, keeping several slots consistently occupied with Glyph and Symbol spells.
The above stats reflect the -2 Wis penalty from the Alien Blessing class feature, as well as 3 level-based boosts to Intelligence. The Glyphstone has been considered a pseudonatural creature for purposes of qualifying for the Alienist PrC, which Tassym has taken unknowingly and reflect his gradual decline into insanity rather than deliberate worship of unnatural entities.)
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The Glyphstone
The imposing black sentinel that overlooks the community drew your attention from far away. Now, up close, it is even more awe-inspiring. The sides angle and curve in directions that are absolutely impossible by conventional laws of physics, giving you a piercing headache if you stare at them too long. But easy noticable are the runes and symbols that run every which way across its surface, that seem to almost glow with an unearthly, internal light...
The Glyphstone, as the towering object has become known, is an enigma by its very nature to describe or depict. To some, it is curved and round, others view it as sharp and angular, still more find it a combination of the two. Even its size is subjective, but it has generally been accepted as less than one hundred feet in diameter (maximum, since that is the approximate size of the hilltop it sits on) and between eighty and one hundred twenty feet tall. Wise individuals do not spend too much time pondering this, but move on to the equally mysterious, but much less confusing, runes on its surface.
(Gaming note: At the DM's option, the mind-boggling effects of staring at the Stone could be represented with periodic Will saves against nonlethal damage, converting into Wisdom damage on a critical failure. Specific amounts are up to the DM.)
Some of these runes are static and unchanging, others might alter or move themselves from day to day, or more frequently. Generally, the more obscure and unintelligible the script, the more stable it is. Passages written in Common have even been observed, but they rarely last more than a few minutes, and rarely make any sense whatsoever. A handful of areas have been partially decoded by the work of countless loremasters and language experts, though being able to read the script is of little use. A majority of the writing are insane ramblings, warning of doom and apocalypse at the hands of unimaginable terrors. Others are less inflammatory and more useful, describing feats of magic not capable in the modern world, save by those who have read the runes and understood them.
(Gaming Note: The runes can be a great attraction for spellcasting PC's, and ones who make an effort to learn the secrets should be rewarded. A Decipher Script check with a severely high DC (35-50+) could grant the caster extra spell slots, a free metamagic feat, or anything else the DM chooses.)
Part 1: Arrival
Part 2: The Tavern
Part 3: Tassym Karyon
Part 4: The Glyphstone
Part 5: Other Buildings and NPCs
Part 6: Information and Quests
Arrival
As you crest over the hill, an object just ahead immediately catches your eye – or tries to. Unfortunately, your eye does not seem to want to be caught, finding it difficult to focus on the irregular-shaped monolith atop the nearby mound. You also see the sprawling inn and tavern, with the handful of surrounding buildings, and no further confirmation is necessary. This is what you have come to visit, for some reason or another - the little-understood artifact known wide as the Glyphstone, and the Gate that hosts its visitors. Packs are shouldered, and/or horses spurred, and you trudge downward towards a hot meal, and a warm bed – and perhaps, a mystery.
http://www.pbase.com/image/56561025/original.jpg
The Gate to the Glyphstone is a well-built and prosperous tavern/inn, set up to service the travellers who came in search of its namesake - a strange, monolithic artifact from beyond the edges of time known simply as the Glyphstone. The main building is three stories tall, the bottom being devoted to the tavern area, and the upper two rooms for the weary. Two smaller buildings on either side hold yet more rooms, and storage areas - traffic can become quite crowded at certain times in the year, and it is a point of pride that the Gate never turns anyone away.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tavern
The sign over the door is unusual - the item in the foreground is clearly a porticullis-style gate in black, but it is superimposed over a blurry, crude blob with lighter dots that seemes far too amateur for an establishment such as this. Shrugging, you open the doors to the largest building, and are immediately assailed by a combination of sound, smells, and heat. The sounds are pleasant, the general bustle of a busy and popular inn. The smells are delicious, those of finely cooked food and equally fine ales in copious amounts. And the heat...well, after a long and difficult journey, whether on foot or horseback, the relaxing warmth is very welcome indeed. Patrons of all shapes, sizes, races, and dresses fill the tables, including a small group of darkly robed and masked figures who huddle in a corner away from the light, hunched over what might be large tomes. Behind the bar is a tall, thin elf, who is busily filling and refilling the various tankards of the people at the counter.
The first floor of the Gate is the tavern, primarily devoted to a large, open area with a number of large tables. Smaller tables, for private groups, line the sides of the room, often occupied by adventurers or mysterious old men. The staff keep a close eye on the room, so new arrivals usually need only take a seat before a server will come and deliver them a short scroll with the latest menu, and read it to them if necessary.
1st Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56511642/medium.jpg
After paying for your rooms and enjoying a hearty meal, you trudge upstairs. The rooms are conveniently numbered on the doors, so finding the one that matches your key is easy by the light of the wall-mounted lamps. Inside, it is sparsely furnished, but cozy, with a bed, table, and wardrobe, and possibly a shelf on the wall.
The second and third floors are virtually identical, cramming as many rooms in as possible. The rooms themselves are not terribly large, but comfortable enough. Rooms are cleaned daily by the staff.
2nd Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56335289/medium.jpg
3rd Floor:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56335292/medium.jpg
Beyond the door, the kitchen is almost stiflingly hot. Four large ovens give off the smell of baking food, and employees prepare more food at the counters.
PC's won't normally be exploring the kitchen, unless they are on the trail of the mysterious cultists (see Quests, below). Inside, it is very busy, far too much so for anyone to take time out to talk to the PC's unless business is slow. An off-duty barmaid or two can sometimes be persuaded into sharing the latest rumors. The hatch covering the stairs to the basement is locked, requiring either the key (always on the person of Tassym Karyon, who will be very reluctant to give it up) or a DC30 Open Lock check.
Kitchen:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56513865/original.jpg
Down the stairs from the kitchen, the basement is dimly lit and gloomy. Dust in varying thickness covers everything, getting more prevalent as you move further away from the entryway.
Staff venture into the basement only to refill the liquor bottles and fetch various supplies - the former happening much more often than the latter. As such, the dust grows very thick after the second room of casks, with no footprints to mark anyone's passage. A closer look, however...
Gaming Note: If pursuing the mysterious cultists (see Quests, below), a DC25 Spot check (remember penalties for illumination) will find occasional streaks in the dust on the walls, leading toward the last storage room. Cultists going to meet in their hidden chamber use Pass Without Trace, but sometimes touch the wall to navigate in darkness. Inside the storage room, a large crate blocks the back wall. A DC25 Search check will uncover the secret door, and its oepning mechanism.
Basement:
http://www.pbase.com/image/56513868/original.jpg
Specialty Items
The menu of the Gate to the Glyphstone changes periodically, depending on the available supplies, but it is always delicious. The various stews and soups cooked by the staff are notable, and the cellars contain a vast assortment of wines, ales, and other liquors. The one standard on the menu that never changes is the House Lamb, a healthy serving of meat soaked in different sauces with vegetable garnish. The meat is always fresh, cut from the herd of young sheep in the pen nearby the tavern. They are always killed and served before their first year, but new ones always replace them, brought in from outside. There are never any adult animals kept at the Gate for long periods of time.
http://www.seasonsrestaurant.nl/pic/menu/Lamskoteletjes.jpg
The other item the Gate is noted for is one a bit more permanent than its lamb. Normally, drinks are served in simple wooden mugs, sturdy but uninteresting. But patrons who purchase a sufficient amount of food or drink are typically given a complementary mug as a souveneir to take with them when they leave. These are carved from black stone in imitation of the Glyphstone itself, though this material is a more mundance alloy of obsidian, slate, and various minerals. It remains very firm, with a shiny black luster that persists unless the mug is sufficiently dirtied to obscure it. The sides are carved with inked runes like those covering the monolith, though these are nonmagical and unchanging and simply display the name of the tavern in dozens of different languages. Each mug is carved with a unique number on the bottom, including its year of issue, and those who bring a previous year's mug to the tavern recieve their first fill free. On the inside of the mug is one final surprise, a glowing Arcane Mark inscribed on the inside at the very bottom that almost exactly matches the tavern's sign - a reminder to the owner every time they down a drink of where that cup came from.
http://www.pbase.com/image/56688599/original.jpg
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Tassym Karyon (Tass-him Kar-ee-on)
http://www.pbase.com/image/56564120/original.jpg
The apparent proprietor of the main establishment nods in greeting as you enter the building. He is an elf, with the angular features of most of his race, though even more gaunt than average. He seems perfectly normal, if a bit distant, but those eyes...the faint, barely noticable light in the background seems to hint at something underneath the surface, a slight touch of madness best left unprobed...
Tassym Karyon was a member of a fairly skilled adventuring group, who chanced upon the Glyphstone in the midst of their travels. Most of his companions were indifferent to the unnatural object (the party's druid in particular), but Tassym felt a strange attraction to it. When the team later dissolved, the elf returned to the Glyphstone to plumb its mysteries and try to learn the secrets of the arcane runes on its sides, which his Geometer learnings had convinced him held untold knowledge of magical workings.
He made a small dwelling near the stone, and soon found that he was not the only pilgrim to visit it on occasion. Other visitors came, and their natures ranged far and wide. He met some fellow Geometers, likewise trying to pierce the veil of mystery over its writings. Others were mighty warriors, who had heard of the unnatural rock of unbreakable stone and sought to test their weapons against it - many of them came, and all trudged away in defeat with the shattered fragments of their hammers and blades. A startling number were very mysterious, cloaked and often masked, arriving in silence and treating the Glyphstone as more of an idol to be worshipped, venerating it before leaving in the same quiet manner; however, Tassym took no notice of them and they rapidly faded from memory.
Occasionally, he hosted his fellow scholars, giving them food and a place to rest overnight, and after a time, it occurred to him that this could prove to be a profitable endeavour. He labored with the aid of summoned creatures and hired strong warriors to help him build a small inn, which he opened for business as a service to all who sought the Glyphstone's teachings - this point was where he began considering his enigmatic neighbor as a being, not simply an object, though the transition was totally unconscious. The inn was an excellent investment, business actually increased as visitors and patrons told others they met of the ancient artifact that now had a place for travellers to recuperate at when they arrived.
Within a few years, the Glyphstone's Gate, as it became known, had expanded to several floors, with an attached stable, and a couple of similarly minded entrepreneurs had set up shop nearby, resulting in one of the most prestigious and well-developed inns for many miles around. Bandit attacks are virtually unheard of - this may have something to do with the propensity of skilled adventurers that frequented the area, but the effect is more likely some unfathomable property of the Glyphstone itself, the aura having existed long before the inn became famous.
Now Tassym lives in his inn, overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the small community, and day by day moving millimeters towards madness borne of constant exposure to the warping influences of the Glyphstone. He has not cast a summoning spell in years, so remains unaware of his ability to summon unnatural creatures, and would likely be horrified if he found out.
(Gaming Notes:
Tassym's Stat Summary:
Grey Elf Abjurer 6/Geometer 5/Alienist 3
Str 10, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 18, Wis 9, Cha 12
Banned schools: Necromancy, Enchantment
Spellbook: Mixed for a 14th-level arcane caster, up to 7th level spells. He favors defensive spells mixed with a few powerful evocations, keeping several slots consistently occupied with Glyph and Symbol spells.
The above stats reflect the -2 Wis penalty from the Alien Blessing class feature, as well as 3 level-based boosts to Intelligence. The Glyphstone has been considered a pseudonatural creature for purposes of qualifying for the Alienist PrC, which Tassym has taken unknowingly and reflect his gradual decline into insanity rather than deliberate worship of unnatural entities.)
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The Glyphstone
The imposing black sentinel that overlooks the community drew your attention from far away. Now, up close, it is even more awe-inspiring. The sides angle and curve in directions that are absolutely impossible by conventional laws of physics, giving you a piercing headache if you stare at them too long. But easy noticable are the runes and symbols that run every which way across its surface, that seem to almost glow with an unearthly, internal light...
The Glyphstone, as the towering object has become known, is an enigma by its very nature to describe or depict. To some, it is curved and round, others view it as sharp and angular, still more find it a combination of the two. Even its size is subjective, but it has generally been accepted as less than one hundred feet in diameter (maximum, since that is the approximate size of the hilltop it sits on) and between eighty and one hundred twenty feet tall. Wise individuals do not spend too much time pondering this, but move on to the equally mysterious, but much less confusing, runes on its surface.
(Gaming note: At the DM's option, the mind-boggling effects of staring at the Stone could be represented with periodic Will saves against nonlethal damage, converting into Wisdom damage on a critical failure. Specific amounts are up to the DM.)
Some of these runes are static and unchanging, others might alter or move themselves from day to day, or more frequently. Generally, the more obscure and unintelligible the script, the more stable it is. Passages written in Common have even been observed, but they rarely last more than a few minutes, and rarely make any sense whatsoever. A handful of areas have been partially decoded by the work of countless loremasters and language experts, though being able to read the script is of little use. A majority of the writing are insane ramblings, warning of doom and apocalypse at the hands of unimaginable terrors. Others are less inflammatory and more useful, describing feats of magic not capable in the modern world, save by those who have read the runes and understood them.
(Gaming Note: The runes can be a great attraction for spellcasting PC's, and ones who make an effort to learn the secrets should be rewarded. A Decipher Script check with a severely high DC (35-50+) could grant the caster extra spell slots, a free metamagic feat, or anything else the DM chooses.)