Riverboat Gambler: Three More Tombs

David Roberts

 

The enormous statue had once stood over the river but the river had meandered in the ages since it was erected. The sages at first believed the features had been scraped away. A supernatural confirmation kill in one of the dynastic struggles on the ancient Plain. But it had simply been sculpted like that. Faceless except the open mouth. Without eyes and ears and nose the expression was unreadable despite the carefully sculpted teeth and tongue. It communicated fear or laughter or pain or hunger as the viewer wished. 

 

The engineers clustered around the statue at the neck and prepared to blow it up. The Bronze Head was going to open a new restaurant in Hylem-Xylem, which everyone just called Sugar City now that the rhyming slang of the chaotic argot was out of favor again. They couldn't find another bronze head, or they just didn't believe in doing the same thing over and over again.

  

Gorgojo had never been to Last Autumn. He had the architectural drawings. The sketches of the streetscape and planned exterior facade and interior decor. He knew how much space he had to work with and the maximum weight the structure would support. But he had no real sense of the place to which he would take his prize. He was from the pampa, the sea of grass where a single tree was a sight to behold. 

A city rising out of an ocean of trees shaded red and purple and yellow and orange sounded like something out of a dream.  

 

The charges would break the head free and the sorcerers would catch it with floating discs. They would bear it to the barge, and from there down the river where it joined with the river Hog. From there to the sea, and then back to the world. Once aboard the ship it was the responsibility of the captain. Gorgojo would, nonetheless, accompany it to its new home. He wanted to look up at it while he drank annix and ate purple worm in mole negro. Then look up further still at the trees.

 

The engineers verified, for a third time, that the charges had been set correctly. The mages promised, again, that they had triple checked the carvings at the base of the statue. Lorem ipsum. The same word repeated again and again without meaning. They had to move soon. The potions would wear off and they'd have to dip into the reserve during the trip back.

 

The heat haze made the tongue dance in the statue's mouth. Gorgojo thanked Logic and The Draftsman for checking his work and lit the fuse.

1: THE EVIL CAROUSE 

Deprived of his promised resurrection in paradise, a Mummy makes do with what he has left.

 

 

 

A: The entrance to this tomb is a hole in a sheer cliff face, dropping down to the valley floor below. By night a light is visible and the sounds of laughter and music are audible from inside.

  

B: Entry hall. Murals show a King presiding over an earthly paradise as the land blooms at his feet. Everyone drinks and smokes from long pipes. A Crypt Snitch (CC2) monitors this hallway and alerts the King to intruders. Whether he calls them friend or foe depends on if they show proper respect and ingratiate themselves.

 

C: Offering hall. Empty bowls and plates and tripods meant to hold offerings to the King after his tomb was sealed. The heavy wooden doors to room D hang open, seals long broken.

 

D: The mummy's court. King Pleasing To The Invisible One lies in a pile of linens as three Ghoul (OSE) women dance for him endlessly, the best preserved of the slaves who entertained him in life. A Cackler (CC2) sings and strums her simsimiyya lyre. The dancers wear 500 GP in semiprecious stones.

 

E: Rooms filled with stacked corpses that failed to reanimate with the King. Seven Repugnants (CC2) are kept out of sight here while their more beautiful sisters entertain the ruler. If he calls they rush to his aid. 300 SP in discarded jewelry amid the restless dead.

  

F: Display chest with modest pile of riches. 1,000 SP, Chainmail + 2, Shield + 2, Potion of Control Undead. Most of the King's wealth was in perishable goods and slaves, he didn't care about precious metals. Above the chest is a sealed escape shaft used by tomb builders to escape.

 

G: Heavy sarcophagus holding the King's favorite wife, reanimated as a Flaming Ghoul (CC2). Without oxygen she's harmless, if the box is opened she tries to burn everything in sight.

  

KING PLEASING TO THE INVISIBLE ONE

A Mummy (OSE) infested with nine Sarcophagal Worms (CC1). The worms were inserted into his corpse by a treacherous priest at the request of a family member, to ensure he can never be fully resurrected and will remain undead forever. The King isn't that bothered. Drugs and sex would be nice but lying there with his dancers to entertain him forever isn't a bad afterlife. He has the physique of an out-of-shape strongman and enjoys wrestling. A new dance from a pretty lady would also be nice. Anyone who can't provide either of those things can feed his Ghouls.

 

Local Encounter: Only the light and the sound of music. None of these undead ever leave the tomb.

 

2: THE DOOM OF MAGES 

A cabal of undead sorcerers hoping for resurrection received a rude awakening.

 

 

 

If anyone casts a spell anywhere in the tomb, the Magedoom at D slithers out of the crypt and attacks them, allowing the Korpers in E to escape.

 

A: Dirt accumulated over the unmarked stone slab over the entry stairs, then eroded away over time, exposing it again. Crowbars can move it, sledgehammers can smash it. On careful inspection, ancient residue suggests a slime once seeped through here. 

 

B: A narrow, sloped passage with a long scorch mark across the floor, ending at the halfway point. A blue crystal at the end of the hallway extends from the ceiling on a hinged mount. A faded slime trail leads from the entrance deeper into the tomb. (The Lightning Bolt trap only had charge, expended fruitlessly when the Magedoom entered the crypt).

 

C: This chamber is unadorned, but blue runes glow on the doorframes and red runes glow on the high ceiling. The floor is scorched in a blast ring pattern. (The runes of Fireball protecting this chamber are still active. When a non-undead tries to pass, the doors summon Walls of Ice to contain the blast as it emits from the ceiling. The Magedoom just ignored the spell).

 

D: Burial chamber. Magedoom (2e)(page saved here) pressed against wall mural. If the Magedoom is drawn away from the wall at E, the Korpers inside escape. Their leader Opener of the Ways tries to polymorph City of Wolves into a dragon, but he's never seen one before so transforms him into a Giant Crocodile (OSE) instead, destroying the wall and completely filling the chamber.

 

Heaped grave goods opposite the wall mural. At the top is the Lawful intelligent +1 Kopesh Scorpion, who grants her wielder the power of Flight if they slay dragons. INT and Ego 12, speaks out loud in alignment language or the Tongue of Dust. Heaped beneath her are 

• Ruby choker worth 1,200 SP
• 2,000 SP in coins
• Potion of ESP
• Clay tablets of 
• demi-shadow monsters, detect illusion, phantasmal force, invisibility 10' radius, hypnotism 
• haste, floating disc, phantasmal force, invisibility, web
• control weather, produce flame, water breathing (air breathing), entangle, commune with nature
• wizard lock, hold person, protection from normal missiles, charm person, knock

Runes of Curses under the tablets cast Polymorph Other on the first tomb robber to disturb them, transforming the victim into a Jackal.

 

E: A wall mural depicting a pyramid with six mages. Three at the base, two in the middle layer and one at the capstone. Their skins are shaded green. Rays shine out from the pyramid and reeds grow at the base. (Behind the thin plaster is a hollow space with Three Lesser Korpers, Two Korpers and one Greater Korper (CC2). These mini-liches can't cast spells because of the Magedoom's antimagic field, leaving them trapped behind the wall).

  

THE ONES WHO COME IN PEACE 

The Ones Who Come In Peace are a group of sorcerer-priests who divined the secret of undeath. Per the ritual they had themselves immured in a specially constructed tomb and died sealed behind a wall. They reanimated as Korpers, intelligent spellcasting undead, only to find that a Magedoom constructed by a rival faction had slithered into their crypt and smeared itself on the wall, close enough to negate their spellcasting. They've been trapped behind the wall ever since.

 

The Korpers are typical Magic Users, they use Charm Person on everyone they meet and get violent when it doesn't work. Their idea of "thanking" adventurers is to ensorcel them, interrogate them about conditions on the Plain, then use them as muscle while they go around looting other tombs for magic items.

  

The Greater Korper: Opener Of The Ways. His Polymorph Other spell is the lynchpin of the whole undead sorcery plan, allowing the gang to transform into non-undead creatures. Spells Shield, Read Languages, Charm Person, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Hold Person, Haste, Polymorph Other

 

The two Korpers: The One With The Sharp Arrows and City Of Wolves. They obey Opener Of The Ways because he's got the Polymorph spell and they don't want to be stuck as green corpses forever. Spells Charm Person, Sleep, Mirror Image, Knock, Fireball.

 
The three Lesser Korpers: Heart of Two Lands, The Hunter and Finger Snail. Loyal and unimaginative, here mostly to shield the gang from the sun if they have to go outside during the day. Spells Charm Person, Magic Missile, Continual Darkness

 

Local Encounter: None unless someone casts spells within 180 feet of Room D, then the Magedoom locks into them and the Korpers escape. 

 

3: THE CHARIOTEER

The tomb of a Great King who refused to dismount his chariot, even in death.

 

  

A: Wide corridor partially exposed to weather. Heavy stone slab with warnings in the ancient tongue: Inside is the King Born From the Sun, he who rides down his foes day or night. The slab has tool marks at the base as though it had been levered open vertically. A team of adventurers with crowbars can lift it high enough to activate the counterweighted mechanism that takes it the rest of the way up. (When the King rides forth it opens at his command.) 

 

B: Wide, high ceiling hallway slopes upward toward the next chamber to the east. Wall images of King in chariot slaughtering warriors, riding down dwarves and gnomes, piling severed hands and penises of defeated enemies, impaling enemy generals. King Born From The Sun attacks here, riding out of C.

 

C: Burial chamber. Central platform. If not alerted to entry at B, King Born From the Sun is here on the platform inert. Walls once showed afterlife scenes, now scored and defaced. The only image still visible is the King holding up his staff and turning the sun black.

 

D: Grave goods. 7,800 in jewelry, household goods and furniture. Wall mural smashed to make an alcove for baskets. One filled with skeletal hands, one empty but stained with blood.

  

a: Wall alcove. In the ceiling is a sealed escape shaft used by tomb builders to escape.

 

KING BORN FROM THE SUN

An undead warrior from one of the civilizations that once ruled the Plain. Intelligent but singleminded, wants to fight and kill things. Fused to his chariot, which is fused to a pair of undead horses. The whole thing has stats as Nuckelavee (Monster Overhaul) His Staff of Going Forth By Day lets him conjure Continual Darkness, letting him chase people around the Plain even when the sun is up.

 

The King takes the right hand and (if possible) the penis of anyone he kills. Cowards who refuse a fight can offer these to him as tokens of submission.

 

Local Encounter: King Born From The Sun, if by day or twilight using his Staff to shield himself from the sun as he rides across the plain looking for a good fight.

 

THE MAKING OF

I used a 2e monster because I thought Magedooms were cool. The only mechanic that doesn't port smoothly is the explosion effect when they die. I'd just roll a random spell for everyone in the AOE.