Third Level
The Third Level
On this level can be found the good-sized kitchens and the adjoining pantry that feed the thousands of the Citadel's inhabitants. Cooks and chefs prepare gourmet meals in kitchens equal to the finest restaurants that exist or did exist anywhere else. This level also possesses the means of providing all the meats, fish, sea food, vegetables, fruit, and every known type of spice, all known wines; every thing that any chief requires to make his or her specialty, plus a complete variety of ancient to modern cooking facilities that use charcoal, wood, gas, electricity, and even a type of solar power. These kitchens are also responsible for the decennial tribute banquet of the Viceroys. The bakeries are on the east side, larger than the Starch Kitchens, while the Kitchens are on the south wall, though each has six thousand chefs and workers, each dressed in black velvet trimmed with orange silk.
Here the PCs will wander through rooms that bear glassware and ceramic containers on shelves or cupboards, past steel doors that conceal frozen-food lockers and storage compartments, through pantries, kitchens, and rooms where those that serve in the kitchens in one or another capacity keep their spare clothing in individual lockers, all lit by light globes hanging down on iron chains.
Rotunda:
Past the landing of the great staircase, you now find yourself in an hexadecagonal rotunda, its ceiling reaching upward into echoing heights. Spaced equally around the rotunda are doors, all identical all black – sixteen in all. Set before each door is a small, plainly painted booth.
The sixteen doors lead to the eight pantries and the eight kitchens of this level. The booths are closets filled with freshly cleaned black velvet’ jackets and associated clothes hanging on hooks. The PCs may use these uniforms to blend in and infiltrate this level if they think of it.
The Kitchens
Each kitchen is more or less identical. Read the following description the first time, and add minor variations if another kitchen is visited.
You find yourself in a kitchen, built on the same godly scale as everything else you've seen so far. Half a hundred cooks could happily work in it and not get in one another's way. Steam billows across the cavernous room, hot and wet. Meat sizzles on iron spits over oven fires, the flames leaping up through iron grates at every drop of grease. To either side of you are gigantic copper-hooded stoves upon which pots nearly as tall as yourself fume. Enormous tables of polished white marble. A long, fancy range topped with at least twenty burners runs along the left wall of the kitchen, while a broad, marble-topped counter unfurls itself down the center, and sinks the size of bathtubs cluster along the wall to the right. There are several tall, massive cupboards of pale wood set with carven, iron-bound doors; what lies behind them you don't know. Also unknown are the contents of several doors of dark oak, six of them broad slabs. How could you not immediately notice the fireplaces, at least six cooks are working at the spits underneath mantels fully twice the size of men; each filled with enough logs to make them roar. There are also fiery grates upon which are set immense black iron pots. Cooks and serving staff, all dressed in white and stained aprons move about rapidly, tending to the food bubbling in the those great pots or arranging dishes, they sample from ladles and dust the bubbling broths with spices and condiments.
The staff of this section are more focused on their work than most other Citadel inhabitants and will tend to overlook any characters with even a modicum of disguise. If asked, they will frequently recite slogans and platitudes when questioned. Just a few are listed below.
"The kitchen is the place of heat, discomfort and toil, but the place out of which health and strength flow into the dining-room and so all over the house. So to is the case of the Citadel and its kitchens."
"In the palace, specifically the kitchen, we do the very work that Caspian himself does. We feed others, which is what Caspian has done from the very beginning of recorded history. He feeds His people. This is divine activity!"
"Choose wisely whose platter you'll be served upon--your state of mind will depend on it."
Aid will be limited. Cooks will not leave their stations, and may demand PCs themselves leave so that their work can continue uninterrupted. If they sense hostile intent, or find out the PCs are intruders, they will summon the Gourmand who will arrive in 2D4 melee rounds and give the PCs one of their most difficult battles so far. Each Kitchen is also staffed by 2D4 Automatic Servant servitors who have been modified to cook and prepare meals under the direction of the skilled chiefs at work. They will rise to the defense of the kitchen and attempt to apprehend thieves and intruders.
A typical Citadel Cook
Attributes: P.P. 12 (15 when cooking), all others average.
S.D.C.: 20
Size: Human size, typically 5 and a half feet (1.7 m) tall.
Appearance: They typically wear a pair of white pants and shirt with an apron. They never go anywhere without their large cook's hat.
Abilities and Powers: Can cook any type of meal at 95%! As native Celestials, they have all the standard longevity and regeneration abilities.
Combat: Three attacks per melee round. Normally doesn't enter combat. Knives do ID6, and other cooking utensils (like forks and pans) do 1D4. Bonuses: Cooks have a +4 to strike using cooking utensils, +3 to strike while using a knife.
Things to See:
The kitchen is able to handle the preparation of everything from a light snack to a splendid twenty course banquet for hundreds of guests. At peak capacity, one of these kitchens can supply 500 hot meals an hour.
The kitchens are complete with all types of stoves, ovens grills, pots, spits, pans, bowls, cooking utensils of every make and design; every item that a chef requires to prepare any type of meal. Among these include various cutlery knives and meat tenderizers that the PCs may think to use as improvised weapons. Each is also equipped with a myriad of magitech and ultra-tech cooking appliances, any of one of which would be considered wondrous to anyone outside of Celes. Just a few are listed below:
The jido-shefum or “auto-chef,” is a machine to prepare sushi. Four mechanical arms go to work, two robotic arms with knives instead of hands, and two arms with hands in addition to integral rice paddles and other exotic kitchen tools. The finished product is placed on a small wooden ray as it sounds a miniature gong. Power comes from a small steam turbine fueled with cooking oil. The exhaust heat also boils water for an integral rice steamer. The fuel tank holds 1 gal cooking oil, good for 4 hours of operation. Although the serving-hand arms are theoretically capable of grappling a user while the knife arms attack them, no credible proof exists what might trigger such behavior. Staff are urged to ignore wild rumors to the contrary. For convenience the jido-shefu is provided with half a dozen small wheels, but they are not powered; it cannot move itself unaided.
A pressure cooker. A sealed metal cooking container with pressure-control valves, common in Celes, but may be wondrous to those outsiders from tech levels below 5. Air pressure in the cooker increases with heat, raising water’s boiling point. This cooks food in 1/4 of the usual time without
burning. Critical failure on Cooking or Housekeeping means the cooker explodes, doing fragmentation damage: 1d-1 cutting.
Magi-tech Instant Cooker. A magickal appliance that resembles a microwave oven with a small computer keypad and monitor plugged into it. Simply place the prepared, but uncooked food into the oven, close the door, type on the computer what the food/meal is (i.e., pot roast, pork chops, hot dogs, turkey with all the trimmings, apple pie, soup, etc.), pump in 6-12 P.P.E. (the larger the serving, the more P.P.E. required), and voila, it is instantly cooked and ready to serve. Specifications such as rare, medium and well done can be indicated on the computer. Range: Prepared food, ready for cooking, must be placed inside the Instant Cooker. Duration: 1-4 seconds. P.P.E- Cost: 1-12 points per meal or item depending on size. For example, toasting 1-4 bagels or slices of bread costs 1 P.P.E. and lakes only a second or two, a bowl of soup, hot dog, and other larger, denser items costs 2 P.P.E. and takes 2 seconds to cook, while something like a large bowl of spaghetti, a roast, whole chicken, turkey or goose costs 12 P.P.E. points and takes four seconds to completely cook.
Magi-Tech Cooking Pot. An ordinary looking pot with a handle(s) but with the coil of a heating element attached to is base and a Magi-Tech doomahickey sticking out from the side of the heating element. Once activated, water placed in the pot takes 3 seconds to reach a fill boil; most other liquids take six seconds to boil. Boil water, heat soup and cook food within a matter of seconds. Duration & P.P.E. Cost: 10 minutes per initial three points of P.P.E. Can be turned off at will.
Refrigerator: A basic refrigerator that keeps food and drink cool and at a consistent temperature without actually needing ice or any apparent form of cold source (magical). Each kitchen typically has six of these, and are stocked with foodstuffs. There are six refrigerators.
Toaster: A simple toaster, identical to any one found in any modern kitchen, but may impress characters who are from a less advanced society.
Food Preserver: This is a simple, but high-tech looking container that can be the size of a large refrigerator. Some have handles or wheels, others don't. Some lock, others don't. Unlike the refrigerator it keeps food preserved, fresh and exactly like it was when placed inside the magickal container. Thus, if it was placed in the container cold, it remains cold, if hot, it remains hot, if room temperature, etc, up to six years.
The ovens are actually carefully concealed high-tech devices that use a combination of microwaves and infrared heat to fast-cook food. With these ovens a 20 lb (9 kg) turkey can be cooked in less than 15 minutes, a roast in 10 minutes, and a pizza in 2 minutes.
There is also an octagonal table heavily laden with food, and ranks of closed cabinets fit for a giant holding hundreds of shimmering copper kettles, pans, pots, plates and utensils hang in orderly precision from hooks on the spotless, white-tiled walls.
Two entire corners are filled with potatoes, apples and other fruits and vegetables. On a long shelf on the back wall are many small boxes each neatly labeled with a spice: rosemary, tarragon, dill, basil, comfrey, thyme, fennel, cinnamon, parsley, chives, and sage.
Some of the serving platters and plates are valuable; made from precious metals and embedded with gemstones - fit for a God-King's table. The pieces of cutlery are each ornamented with a deep blue gem. Gold plates are enameled with pictures, each with different scenes of people and animals in the countryside and worth 100 gp each. Goblets are cut crystal and set with rings of gold, top and bottom; large goblets are worth 150 gp and small ones 120 gp. The knives are steel with ebony-handles set with smoky or rose quartz and worth 55 gp each. Forks are gold with star rose quartz in the handles and worth 65 gp each. The spoons are also gold and have small alexandrite or aquamarines in the handles (350 gp each). The napkins are also valuable, each elaborately embroidered in white silk [10 gp each] and 24 plain gold napkin rings [10 gp each].
Supplies:
There is enough raw and prepared foodstuffs in every kitchen to feed a hungry adventuring party for months should they have the means to pack it all and the willingness to steal it. Canned and bottled goods, bowls and baskets of fruit and vegetables are just a few of the food items available. Assume that the kitchens and pantries have all food and drink items and ingredients listed in the equipment sections of any fantasy RPG. Finding a specific item will be a lot harder.
Pantry
Each pantry is more or less identical. Read the following description the first time, and add minor variations if another pantry is visited.
For a moment it seems as though you have stepped into a forest. Living trees grow up through the floor. At first all you could see is a vast zone of brilliant white light. It is filled with the smell of summer fruit, of raspberries and peaches and strawberries and red currents. When your vision focuses you can the ornate white marbled tables. The trees grow up through the floor, but are perfectly melded with the tables and other furniture.
Set in even rows are dozens and dozens of small metal lids, just big enough for a serving tray to fit.
There rooms are essentially food preparation rooms. Meals that are completed in the kitchens are delivered using the small portals around this room, concealed as dumbwaiters.
Things to See
The Trees: The tree trunks are actually alive, and have been such for thousands of years. More remarkably, any one of them can open like a closet or a cupboard. A clear light will come on, disclosing shelves built into the tree trunk, which are hollow, or perhaps carved from the wood of the trunk itself. Within are neat, stacked tableware, tablecloth, plates, and candles.
The Portals: Each is concealed by a metal lid; there are hundreds in each room, each with its own tiny indicator light above it, which only goes out when a meal has been delivered to the appropriate room. These lead to every level of the Citadel. However, they are only large enough to accommodate the myriad silver serving platters. Clever PCs may think to deliver an explosive device to higher levels; though this assassination attempt will bring the wrath of the entire Citadel down on their heads.
Wine Cellars
There are eight such cellars, one for each kitchen; lead to by a concealed hatch hidden in the floor tiles. Should a PC discover it, they will see a ladder leading down into darkness. Ir is only when they reach the bottom of the stairs that they see doors to the right and left. Behind the right hand door lies the wine racks.
Tens of thousands of wine bottles meets your gaze, stting on a literal maze of racks stretching into dimness. The room itself is a wonder: a cavern of green onyx; dark and cool. Light comes from the fluttering flames of the wall-mounted gas lamps, causing shimmers of light to chase twists of shadow along the racks. The only sound is the whispery voice of the perpetual wine-cooling draft lazily entering the gallery by one passageway, leaving by a second.
The atmosphere of the wine cellar is maintained at exactly 55 degrees and a flow of cool dry air pumps ceaselessly from ceiling vents to provide humidity to keep the precious wine in ideal condition. Four times a year, every bottle in the collection is gently rotated a quarter turn—ninety degrees—in its niche, ensuring that no edge of any cork dries out and that the sediment will settle properly to the bottom of each punt. Due to the tediousness of the wok, the measured care that it requires, and the havoc that it causes with neck and shoulder muscles, only Automations are able to attend to the turning of the wine bottles, properly rotating thirteen thousand per session, in addition to their regular duty of vacuuming the racks once a month, as well as the ceilings, walls, and floor. Depending on the actions of the PCs, the Automations may attack the PCs, or in the very least inquire about their intentions in the wine cellar.
The cellars extend no little distance into the sides of the Citadel Celes itself, and both sides of each are lined with the greatest wines of Celes, a treasure valued in the many millions of royals. There is a total of one million gallons of wine stands here, along with two hundred kegs, each filled with 10 gallons of various ales. Characters who indulge will find the vintages to be excellent, but if they overindulge themselves; drunkenness may result.
If the PCs investigate further, they will walk through narrow, dome-vaulted passageway until they reach a curiously coved grotto where they can circle various unique vintages. This continues through an elongated-oval gallery to a large central chamber where great piles of iron-banded casks are stacked to the ceiling, a murky landscape of rounded towers and close-hemmed passages that intersect at circular grottoes ringed by more racks. The barrel towers lean like cathedral buttresses.
Things to See:
The Tasting Room: In addition to the hundreds of wine bottles lying in elaborate racks, there are dozens of archaeological treasures found in a cozy tasting room, which is separated from the temperature-controlled portion of the cellars by a glass wall: earthenware pottery, obsidian idols, gigantic baby-faced stone heads crowned with gear suggesting rugby helmets, a basalt disk the size of a tractor wheel leans against the doorjamb, its facets swarming with arcane numerals and cryptic icons, a ponderous granite slab suggesting a primordial billiard table, a pre-Columbian calendar disk, a gigantic Olmec stone head. In the far corner rests a four-legged granite table for eight, its surface littered with tall, long-stemmed goblets, split limes and wine corks. Stacked floor to ceiling along on wall, several of the enormous barrels feature hinged bottoms that can be swung open, doorlike. Some barrels have shelves inside, on which are stored wineglasses, linen napkins, corkscrews, other items. Four contain televisions, allowing a vine connoisseur to view multiple channels simultaneously.
Walk In Freezer
Although they cannot know it, this particular chamber is a giant refrigerator, made for the storing of food. The insulated walls contain giant collerant coils, capable of plunging the temperature of the interior of the chamber to a remarkably low degree. Meat thus quick-frozen, can be perfectly preserved for months, even years.
The new room beyond is far larger and cold. The air is absolutely frigid, as if one were walking through death itself. It chills them to the bone, making goose bumps rise on every portion of exposed skin. A patch of fog lingers in the air with every breath they take. The first thing they see as they move forwards, as currents of frost undulate before them, they can make out several enormous bulb-shaped objects hanging from the ceiling, arranged in rows. There are a lot of them, all over the room, and they provide ample room for obstruction.
Going up and examining one of the objects shows that it is heavy and smells somewhat musky, and seeing it up close, the PCs almost choke on their breath.
They are gigantic slabs of meat.
What kind of food animal is this LARGE?
There is a clear path from the entrance door to a set of double doors some forty feet across the room; most likely intended to allow food carts to pass through. The light comes from six fluorescent tubes spread evenly over the ceiling. The glass on the lights is tinted slightly, giving the room a greenish cast. Even so, the temperature amplifies the chill in the damp shoes and lower pants of the PCs and creates a thin layer of frost on the surface. Steam issues from their mouths with every breath they take as they look around.
Nothing is heard but the rumbling, muted roar of the refrigeration system.
SLAM!
Their hearts jolt right up their throats and bounces around their skulls. The PCs spin around, their guns thrust flush in front of them, ready to blaze away. Nothing. It was just the door closing behind them.
There is a set of doors, far larger than the one on the other side. They look like massive cargo doors. The PCs start towards them, eager to get out of this room with these freakishly large, alien-looking sides of meat.
Cold Food Storage
There are more wonders in the cold-pantry. A hundred boxes of dried milk, five twelve-pound bags of sugar, a gallon jug of blackstrap molasses, cereals, glass jugs of rice, macaroni, spaghetti; ranked cans of fruit and fruit salad; a bushel of fresh apples that scented the whole room with autumn; dried raisins, prunes, and apricots, a deep bin filled with potatoes.
Just off the kitchen is a pantry lined with shelves containing numerous jars each filled with fruits or vegetables. Dried meats hang from hooks and barrels, presumably filled with flour, sugar, and the like line the south wall. Oddly the food shows no sign of decay, nor is there any dust. Could there be a natural explanation for this?
Still
This room is filled with ten-gallon barrels. In the center of the room is a large, winding contraption of tubing, beakers, steel braziers, and kettles. Running water is available from a well in the corner. The well has a solid wooden lid with an intricate design cut into the wood.
Just a still, used by the staff on their off-time to invent new varieties of alcohol. PCs will the appropriate skills will find everything they need here to try their hand at making new concoctions.
Wheat Harvest Room
You stand now in a plain of golden grain, beneath a blue sky. Flat fields that go on for forever in all directions, as far as your eye can see.
Sunlight glints off tall golden strands of wheat and alfalfa that stretch out over country, down into valleys and up hillsides. All the way to the horizon. Pale gold instead of green, the stalks sway in perfect unison with the prevailing gentle breeze. Despite the increasingly uncomfortable ongoing silence you are glad that the grass, at least, does not make any noise. The breeze rustles the wheat and caresses your hair--that of heads of grain beating against each other. Rising from the ground at regular intervals are enormous wooden columns stretching up into the blue at least three hundred feet.
PCs may believe that they have been transported to the outside, but it is simply a large room beneath a false sky, comprised of a flat field and several hills. The grain is harvested for the granaries. Deep below the wheat-field floor are marble chambers and barred cages where livestock are kept.
You find yourself looking up into the tall grass. It makes no sense that this room have a sky and a field of wheat. You know, though some preternatural sense, that nothing lays beyond the planted field of waist-high wheat. If you walked forever, you will never reach its end. There is more than just a carpet of gold, though, and the bright blue sky above it. More than the thick, white puffy clouds that cast moving shadows upon the field. Then you identify part of what makes you uneasy—you feel as if you are being watched. Glancing around, you wonder if your companions feel the same.
You encounter a stream, and that lightens your mood a little. There is nothing abnormal about it, and everything familiar. It comes cascading down a hill, full of all the life and movement that is absent from the grain. The cheerful aqueous splash breaks the intimidating stillness, while providing a homey echo of home.
Giant Chicken
The name says it all: these animals are identical to regular chickens, except that they stand roughly five feet (1.5 m) tall! How this peculiar breed of fowl came about is unclear, but it is known that they existed as long the Citadel has been in existence. Most likely, a combination of selective breeding, genetic manipulation, and growth hormones were used to create ever-larger birds for food. Somewhere along the line, things got a bit out of hand. Giant Chickens are not predators, but they can be dangerous. The hens are extremely docile, but skittish. When frightened, they flap their wings (they cannot actually fly), screech, peck, and make all kinds of racket. Unwary caretakers can easily be injured or even maimed, losing a hand to an angry peck.
The Roosters are another matter entirely and the reason why farmers and veterinarians should always wear light metal armor when working around these animals. The most obvious use for raising Giant Chickens in the Grain Harvest room is food. One full grown animal can feed 15 to 20 men. Females lay 3 to 5 softball-sized eggs a week. Unfertilized eggs can be used for cooking and baking recipes just like regular chicken eggs. The taste? Well, they taste like... chicken.
Type: Domesticated farm animal.
Alignment: Neutral. Cares only about eating and will seldom fight except to escape. Roosters are more aggressive and will attack anything that threatens the hens.
Attributes: I.Q. 1D4 (low animal intelligence), M.E. 1D4, M.A. 2D6, P.S. 1D4+10 (1D6+14 for roosters), P.E. 1D4+8 (1D6+12 for roosters), P.P. 1D6+8 (2D4+6 for roosters), P.B. 2D4+4, Spd can run up to 20 miles (32 km) per hour.
S.D.C.: 2D4+60 (2D6+90 for roosters)
Hit Points: 3D6+20 (1D4x10+30 for roosters)
Horror Factor: None, unless a whole pack of 10 or more are swarming you (H.F. 9). Roosters have a horror factor of 5 for being dangerous.
Size: 5 feet, plus 1D6 inches (1.55 to 1.68 m) tall.
Weight: 250 to 300 pounds (112.5 to 135 kg).
Average Life Span: 10 years (estimated).
Feeding: Consumes 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of seed, grain, or other feed per day.
Attacks: Two.
Damage: Claw strike 2D6 S.D.C. Peck with beak 2D4 S.D.C. Double damage from roosters.
Bonuses: Hens are +4 to automatic dodge (often bob and weave unpredictably), +1 to strike, +5 to save vs disease. Roosters also have +3 to strike, and are +3 to save vs Horror Factor.
Habitat: Only in the Wheat Room of the Citadel.
Special Bonus: The bones of the Giant Chicken are dense but extremely prone to splintering. This can make them a potential choking hazard to humans and animals if the meal is not prepared properly.
Granaries ("The Mountains of Spice")
Once again it appears that you have emerged outside. You stand in a desert at the foot of a vast mountain range. The desert stretches as far off as the eye can see. Wherever you look, the ‘sand’ move in slow streams and eddies. It collects into hills and dunes of every shape and size, each with a color of its own. Light-blue sand gathers to form a light-blue hill, and the same with green and violet and so on. You stand upon a dune of purplish-red sand and all around you you see nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill reveals a shade or tint that recurs in no other. The nearest is cobalt blue, another is saffron yellow, then comes crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermilion, lapis lazuli. And so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hills, separating color from color, flow streams of gold and silver. Like the dunes, the color of each mountain varies also. As time passes, you notice that the first mountain emits an aroma.
A fine dust, or pollen, falls from them, too, and when you breathe it in, it intoxicates like sweet wine. You now wonder if each mountain is comprised of a different aromatic spice or seasoning: salt, sugar, etc. Likewise, the dunes which you mistook for sand appear to also be various spices.
Several times, great clouds of colored dust settle on you from above. Hot wind blows across the dunes, sweeping up grains of spice and throwing it into your eyes. The air is dry, scorching your lungs, and the heat is completely relentless on your back. Overhead, you notice that the sun has been replaced by an enormous crescent moon that burns like the hot sun, and mercilessly beats down on your back. That crescent moon rises higher and higher and the heat becomes murderous.
There are numerous desert plants; bushes covered with waxy white blossoms that give a mild, pleasant fragrance. These are stacte; a spice used in holy incense.
The dunes are divided by color, and contain every spice known to man: rosemary, tarragon, dill, basil, comfrey, thyme, fennel, cinnamon, parsley, chives, and sage.
The air over the colored spice dunes shimmer, and you realize that you are in a tight spot. You can not stay in this desert, that was certain. If you don't get out of it soon, you will die of hunger and thirst.
The exit Gate door is always there. The PCs may leave any time, unless Caspian so desires that they remain.
If they remain, there is nothing really more to explore. They can climb dune after dune; hour after hour as they plod on, never seeing anything but hill after hill. Only the colors keep changing. Whatever fabulous strength they have is no longer of any use to them, for desert distances cannot be vanquished with strength. The air is a searing blast from Perdition. Their tongue clings to the roof of their mouths and their faces stream with sweat.
The crescent moon is a smile of fire in the middle of the sky. It has been in the same place for a long time and doesn't seem to move. Your eyes burn and your tongue feels like a piece of leather. But you don't give up. Your body has dried out, and the blood in your veins feels so thick it can hardly flow. But on you go, slowly, with even steps, neither hurrying nor stopping to rest, as if you have had years of experience at crossing deserts on foot. You ignore the torments of thirst. Your will has become as hard as steel, neither fatigue nor hardship can bend it. You recall how easily you had been discouraged in the past. You had begun all sorts of projects and given up at the first sign of difficulty. You have always been afraid of not getting enough to eat, or of falling ill, or having to endure pain. All that is far behind him. No one before him had dared to cross the Mountains of Spice and the Desert of Seasoning, on foot, nor would anyone. This last thought saddens you. It all seem to be so inconceivably large you feel sure you will never come to the end of it. Despite your phenomenal endurance you are bound to perish sooner or later. That doesn't frighten you. You will die with calm dignity. But since no one has ever ventured into this desert, the news of your death will never be divulged. Either in Celes or at home. Being able to endure hardships is a great thing. But courage and daring are something else again.
More than one "civilized" adventurer has perished from overexertion and strength sapping heat. Fools who attempt a forced march in full armor under the noon sun quickly boil in their own sweat. Included here are some guidelines for what precautions player characters will have to take to keep from accidentally cooking themselves to death.
The heat of the Mountains of Spice makes it seem like one is traveling and adventuring in a blast furnace. Just wearing clothing and a light load can become a difficult task or at least an annoyance. Normal, non-strenuous activity, such as walking or light manual labor can only be continued for half an hour per point of Physical Endurance (P.E.) above 8. Thus, an adventurer with a P.E. of 14 can walk or work lightly for three hours straight at a time before suffering from heat exhaustion or needing to rest and rehydrate. Adventurers performing strenuous activity, such as a forced march, combat or heavy lifting or work (this includes wearing any suit of armor or equipment weighing more than 50 pounds/22.6 kg), can only go on for 15 minutes per point of P.E. above 8. So, the same adventurer with a P.E. of 14 can only run, fight or perform otherwise strenuous activity for about an hour and a half at a time. Extremely strenuous activities, such as heavy or prolonged fighting or running at an all-tilt sprint, can only be done for one minute per P.E. point. Once the character has gone for such a period he will need to rest. The only way to avoid tiring out quickly is to take frequent rest stops and drink plenty of non-alcoholic fluids. Water and fruit juices are ideal. If a person rests for ten minutes every hour, they can remain active for 8-10 hours before needing to stop and rest for at least 2-4 hours. Pushing oneself will eventually cause the character to drop to the ground, physically exhausted (half speed, attacks per melee round, skill performance and combat bonuses).
Besides forcing characters to drink lots of water and seek the shade, the hot, dry climate of the Mountains of Spice also makes it rather uncomfortable for anybody to wear heavy armor there. Anyone wearing non-magical armor weighing 50 pounds (22.6 kg; add 20 pounds/9 kg for giant-sized armor) or more suffers the penalties listed on page 270 of the Palladium Fantasy RPG under "armor restrictions." Men of Arms will have their movement halved, and penalties of -2 to parry and dodge. Non-Men of Arms will have their penalties doubled! This means that movement is only 25% regular and the character is -4 to parry and dodge. In addition, the character will have to take frequent, short rests due to fatigue. Note: Heavy armor in the desert also doubles the rate at which one sinks into deep, soft spices.
Traveling on Foot: The deep, relatively soft spice of this area makes it difficult for travelers to get any sort of traction; this is especially true of hoofed animals. The maximum walking speed for humanoids is 3-5 miles (4.8 km) an hour at a brisk pace, with a 5-10 minute rest necessary every hour. Travelers can cover two miles (3.2 km) an hour at a more leisurely pace, and only have to stop for a 5-10 minute rest break every four hours.
Speed Modifiers: Maximum running speed is reduced by 30% for most humanoids, 50% for humanoids under four feet (1.2 m) tall, and 10% for giants over 15 feet (4.6 m) tall.
If one is going to survive in the desert, one is going to need water, and lots of it. Most humans can go for weeks without food if they have to, but can only last three or four days, tops, without water. And that's just sitting still. Somebody who is particularly active (i.e., running, walking, fighting, or performing heavy manual labor) can dehydrate him- or herself beyond the point of no return within a day. Heat, wind and lack of shade also contribute to the problem of dehydration in a desert environment.
In any desert, having adequate water supplies is critical to all adventurers. For game purposes, normal-sized humanoids must consume a minimum of two quarts of water a day or become dehydrated, double if involved in strenuous activity like combat, running or hard labor.
Dehydrated characters have all combat bonuses and number of attacks per melee reduced by half. Sustained dehydration (for more than 24 hours in desert conditions) results in the character losing 25% of his total hit points. Reduce Hit Points by an additional 20% for each subsequent 24 hour period without at least one quart of water. After 72 hours, characters will have lost 65% of their total hit points, plus speed will be reduced by 90%, attacks/actions per melee round are reduced to one per round, and the suffering characters have no initiative and no combat bonuses of any kind! After 96 hours, Hit Points are down by 85% and if the dehydrated characters do not each get at least two quarts of water within the next 1D6 hours, they each fall into a coma. After that, unless they get at least two quarts of water in the next 24 hours, hit points drop to 3D6 points below zero and they die.
These requirements are just for characters doing normal activity, such as walking, talking, exploring, etc. If the characters spend more than four hours of the day performing rigorous activity such as fighting, running, heavy manual labor, etc., then their water requirements for that day will be doubled.
To fully recover from dehydration, players must drink two extra quarts of water for each day they have gone without drinking any. They cannot drink all that extra water at once, though. They need to drink it over the course of the next 48 hours. With rest and proper hydration, a full recovery is made at roughly the same rate as the dehydration; meaning if a character suffered dehydration for three days, complete Hit Points, speed, bonuses and abilities are restored in three days (basically reverse the dehydration process).
Fields of Plenty
You step through the door, and are temporarily blinded by the azure blue of the sky and the brightness of the sun. You see endless fields and rows of culivated crops - grain, corn, vegetables of all varieties, running to the limits of your vision in every direction. Scattered among are plots and groves of maybe thrity to forty fruit trees -- all the ones who can recognize and many you do not. These have been planted in straight rows, and then laid out rank and file in rectangles. You can smell the sweetness of fruit, ripe on the vine and branch, ready for picking.
After nothing to eat for many hours, the presence of several kinds of fresh fruit, their multi-hued surfaces glistening with droplets, is tempting. Having seen far too much of what this place holds in the way of surprises, you are wary. They might contain nothing more threatening than pulp and seeds, but perhaps not.
The air is bright, the sky is a uniform deep azure that fades to a lighter shade of blue only around the extremes of the horizon.
This is not exactly a world room, but rather its own separate Earth-like planet in distant space devoted solely to the growing of various crops, chosen for its lack of seasonal rotation or axial tilt. Over the centuries the entire planet has been completely terraformed and more space has been devoted to food production than any other place in the known universe. The crops have been engineered to be largely self-regulated and uniformly grown; much like the palace gardens. This is helped by the fact that growing conditions remain uniform throughout its cycle around its sun (though some regions of the planet are deliberately kept too dry or too cold in order to study how to make plants thrive in hostile conditions to test and study new techniques to help improve crop yields elsewhere). Just the resources of this one visible region out of the entire planet alone could feed every starving person on Caspia forever, but it amuses Caspian to simply use an entire planet's resources to exclusively provide ingredients for his own staff in his own kitchens to feed the population in his own comparatively tiny fortress when he could be providing the minimum for whole nations who are starving.
Thing to see:
The crops are nearly infinite, with all known varieties of grain, vegetables, wheat, and corn present, along with many unknown to the PCs.
The groves also contain every variety of fruit tree - known and unknown. The fruit on these trees; range from just-budding fruit to very ripe. Some of the fruit has fallen off the trees and the ground was covered with fruit at varying stages of decay; filling the air with a tainted sweetness.
There are cooks or other staff members constantly entering the fields and picking fresh ingredients for the day's meals. They act much like the other cooks and will not react if the PCs come up with a good cover story or are dressed like cooks. They will ask anyone else to kindly leave as the crops are not to be disturbed. They will become hostile if the PCs damage the crops or attack them. If they are clearly outmatched, they will flee through the doorway and summon 2D4 Black Knights to apprehend the intruders.
Courtyard of the Starch Kitchens
You step out from under a huge arch of glassy green stone and into a modest-sized courtyard, paved with slabs of volcanic rock polished mirror-smooth. A marble fountain sits in the center. Blue wildflowers grow, presumably where water once splashed. You notice a reflection, the result of the dozens of shining medallions set into the courtyard's walls. Metal carts filled with yams, potatoes, bags of rices occupy much of the space. Across the courtyard looms a twelve-foot-high archway that recedes in a short wide tunnel to a door with a big brass handle that juts from the extreme middle left of the door.
This is where supplies are dumped for the cake kitchens. It is unguarded except by the spirit of the fountain.
Things to See:
The Medallions:
The Fountain: Alternating colored stone flowers intertwine to decorate a three-tiered basin fountain. Wherever the droplets of water fall, blue wildflowers sprout.
The water carries a special property. Microscopic seeds lay dormant within the water. PCs who drink the water will have the blue flowers quickly sprout from inside of them to seek the surface, possibly leading to a painful death.
The 'Spirit' of the Fountain:
The Starch Kitchens
The door opens inward without a sound to reveal a long wide hallway, very white and stark and unadorned, its floor made of diamond-shaped black and white marble tiles with small red inlays at all their angles. The room you're in smells pleasantly of cinnamon, flour, black walnuts, and oranges. At the end of the hallway you can hear the sounds of water boiling, knives chopping, the whoosh of cooking flame, scraping on wooden surfaces -- the sounds of furious cooking. Through an open door, you can see more of the white-suited chiefs at work.
Things to see:
The Ovens:
Here, three thousand chefs and workers boil, chop, fry, bake, or dispose of food. The Starch Kitchens contain more ovens of more types than could be found in any bakery, three widely separated cooking areas with a total of twenty high-intensity gas burners, a planning station, a baking station, a clean-up station with four sinks and four dishwashers, three ceramic tile islands of prep tables containing master-carved detail representations of castles, angels, galleons, barges, and trees made of yams. Each is a large, high-ceilinged room with double sinks, double ovens, a microwave oven, and the refrigerator.
Chocolate Kitchens (third floor) (3): The Chocolate Kitchens are divided into three sections: beverages, candy, and deserts. The kitchens are all white—white paint, white floor tile, white marble counters, white appliances. The only relief from white are polished chrome and stainless steel where metal frames or panels are required, which reflect other white surfaces. Pots, pans, ladles, and other utensils hang from gleaming, stainless-steel utility racks above a central cooking island with four electric burners, a grill, and a work area.
Strawberry Kitchens (third floor) (3): A dazzling kitchen. Everything in shades of cream and honey. Marble floor, bird’s-eye maple cabinets with the sinuous rounded contours of ship’s cabinetry. The exceptions are black-granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. The walls are lined with long alabaster sinks with mango and pineapple motifs on the faucet handles. The marble floor continues into a built-in dining area that can comfortably seat six, eight in a pinch. The top of the maple table has been inlaid with ebonized wenge, carnelian, and holly wood as white as bone, in an intertwining ribbon motif—spectacular and expensive craftsmanship.
Cake Kitchen (third floor) (1): The bakery is well-equipped with double sinks, a walk-in refrigerator, several ovens, several immense white enamel storage cabinets, a dough-kneading machine, and a large array of other appliances. The middle of the room is occupied by a long, wide counter, the primary work area; one end of it has a shiny stainless-steel top, and the other ends has a butcher’s block surface. The stainless-steel portion is stacked high with pots, cupcake and cookie trays, baking racks, bundt pans regular cake pans, and pie tins, all clean and bright. Beyond the butcher’s block counter, set in the long wall on the far side of the room, are three ovens. One of them is huge, with a pair of solid, over-and-under, stainless-steel doors. The other two ovens are smaller than the first, though still larger than conventional size. Each of the smaller ovens is a marvel of black wrought iron and white enamel, balanced on bandy little legs and adorned with iron curlicues and engravings – more like a work of art than a stove. Gleaming copper pots of all sizes simmer on the stove-top. The entire kitchen gleams. The cakes are a gallery of winter landscape of swirling, drifting whiteness, of snowy rosettes and layers of icy glitter.
Role-Playing Opportunity:
One or more of the PCs have been accepted into the kitchen staff, and perhaps even become apprenticed to the Master Chief himself.
Day after day in the Citadel’s kitchens, you learn to cut banquet foodstuffs; you cut fruits in the shapes of diamonds, emeralds, pearls, marquises, pointed stars, and lozenges, gild them with syrup, and recover them with their own glistening skins, so that when the guests slice the fruit before them, its flesh scatters onto the plate like a handful of jewels. Your knife work is so fine that you can cut cold butter into golden sheets of lace; these are layered on beds of ice to hold their shape, then lifted off and flung over the great platters at the banquet table, melting erotically as bridal veils over the principal dishes. You learn the seven methods of leavening, the three hundred sauces, the ninety-nine transformations, a complex genre of dishes based on re-creating vegetables and grains as meat. You learn how to whip edible ornamental clouds of eggs in the shapes requested of cumulus, cirrus, and a repertoire of others, flavored with the essences of game, cheese, buttered lemons; they float in haunting broths, garnishes that suit the principal dishes they accompany. It is a cuisine filled with hidden magics; these copies of clouds influence the sea clouds, and conjure fine sailing breezes, it is said.
You learn the arts of how a personality is revealed through the grammar of a palate, such as the range of behavior one might predict from people who prefer the foods of childhood. You are taught the classic recurring paradoxes of appetite, such as the fact that the people who refuse meat are drawn from those who hate death and those who love it, either truly tenderhearted or vicious sadists, afraid of tasting the first kill.
Unlettered, your dinners become your records of time passing, of feelings experienced, of life lived. Your soufflés, your management of fire, the architecture of a roast burned slowly into succulence on its carapace of bones, your transparent pastry revealing a jewelry of rice, meat, chestnuts, shredded mushrooms, and the butter churned in spring, are like entries in a journal. A certain cake of chestnut and chocolate represents shock and pain to you—you had cut your finger severely in learning how to make it. You will always remember drops of blood disappearing into the batter. You can recite an anthology of your menus precisely for at least four years, and all that has been said of them, and what had happened the day that dinner was eaten.
The fourth level, while frequently overlooked, is one of the most important sections of the fortress. Visitors are advised to skip them entirely on their way to more interesting locales. As such, the fourth level can be considered one of the more isolated levels. Its isolation and privacy ensures that cooking smells, noise, and any other indelicacies of the servants are kept away from the royal guests. The kitchen and its attendant odors are confined to a more remote quarter.
Notes on the Palace Servants: Living and working in the Citadel is unlike any other sort of existence in the world. It is a single building, the size of a city but it is a city that is higher than it is wide or long.
The Citadel is so large that isolation among the various levels is inevitable. In some areas it is apparent that entire societies have sprung up whole-cloth; the palace servants are typically drawn from the ranks of these societies.
Though many outsiders (both in Celes or the Imperium) may apply or work their whole lives for a chance at a job there, none are accepted. In the rare event that Caspian accepts (or presses) someone from outside into his service and stations him in the palace, the person is seldom permitted to leave.
Ironically, while life away from the royalty becomes more relaxed with less ceremony, life within the servants quarters becomes a parody of Citadel life elsewhere. Butlers, housekeepers and cooks are the monarchs in their own small kingdoms. A strict hierarchy among the servants developed which has persisted for thousands of years. The upper servants often withdraw from the servants' hall to eat their dessert courses in the privacy of their rooms in much the same way a member of nobility would withdraw to a solar. Strict orders of precedence and deference evolved which become sacrosanct.
Central Lobby:
Whether by stairs or floating platform, the first things the PCs see of the fourth level is the central lobby.
At first there is only a harsh blue light. You blink and see a blinding blue sky with stars set in its firmament. Impossible, you think. But then how much have you seen already that you had previously thought impossible since arriving here?
You see now that you stand in a ridiculously baroque lobby on a marble tile floor reflecting the blue of the ceiling. Before you is an elaborate circular fountain with a trident-bearing hero arising from its depths glittering in the bright light. You see how its base sports a gold and scarlet lozenge pattern. Porpoise statues of gold filigree ring the center. In the center of the ceiling is dome of stained glass. Huge plants are grouped into pairs. The circular walls are hung with bright glowing tapestries.
At the back of the hall, two curving staircases mirror one another, framing a doorway with sliding panels that echo the entryway.
Things to see:
The Fountain:
The Tapestries:
Servant Quarters:
It requires an army of servants, chamberlains, and concubines to attend to every need of the royal guests that occasionally visit this floor. Attired in subdued uniforms, courteous, omnipresent, the staff seem to outnumber the guests. There are over one hundred rooms, and each is identically laid out and contain the same furnishings, although they also feature additional decorations or clutter that reflects the personalities of the individuals that reside here. Their three-room quarters are relatively nice, albeit smaller and less luxurious than the Paragon Quarters.
A typical quarters will have floors and walls assembled from wooden planks trimmed in brass, doors made of polished oak as hard as iron, bright cherry tapestries, small octagonal tables, elegantly crafted chairs, a large bed with white silk sheets, comforters, and two pillows stuffed with goose feathers. Experimentation reveals that the bed can provide automatic massages, circulate the air in the bedroom, as well as play gentle music. The bed is set beneath a canopy of white silk. Behind the bed is a circular bathtub hiding between delicately painted dressing screen. The bathtub is also equipped with water jets to luxuriously spray the bather. There is also a fireplace, a large closet containing the servants' uniform hanging from rotating hooks. There is a footlocker for personal gear and weapons and a dumbwaiter provides meals, which might be stored in a small refrigerator in the corner.
Of special interest are the cabinets which contain books, writing paper and various advanced devices to amuse and educate behind their delicate glass doors. Each servant has differing tastes, but all are required to maintain a copy of “The Servant’s Handbook,” a massive, 1800 page tome detailing the rights and responsibilities of a palace servant. The book contains specific instructions regarding protocols and proper behavior between superior and inferior, and covers virtually every eventuality. Intruders into the Citadel may find such a book invaluable in navigating the Citadel, as the floor plans for levels one through thirty-seven are included.
Servants question any person who invades their quarters. If the response is unsatisfactory, they call for guards to have the intruders arrested. If the heroes surrender, they are disarmed and taken to in the Stronghold below. Their weapons are kept in the room where they were captured. There is a 10% chance for each turn spent in these rooms that a new servant arrives, having come off his shift.
Whenever the party enters one of these rooms for the first time, roll on the table below to determine
who is quartered here, and what their chambers contain.
Diversion Rooms:
In addition to their quarters, each servant has been provided with a place to allow their creative side to run free. Choose or roll on this table to determine which diversion the Servant in question has chosen.
1. Arbor: Stepping in, you see hear only the soft rustling of leaves and the gushing of water. The rest is only silence. You stand facing a three-tiered fountain in the center of a garden. Cool clear water flows from its top and gently pools in its widely rimmed basin. A large, flowering apricot tree arches over the fountain with a bench at its base. Your eyes rest upon the colors and varieties of the plantings within the walled area. All sorts of scented herbs grow among the jonquils, tulips and daffodils. The fruit-bearing trees and vines are heavy with flowers, but they also have leaves and the rudiments of both summer and fall fruit. As with the trees and vines, the flowers of spring, summer, and fall ae blooming at the same time within the beds.
The servant maintains a private herb or vegetable gardens—a dome of self-contained atmosphere and temperature where the servant can grow special plants and herbs as a hobby. Some are natural gardens, others are elaborate formal designs, but all at beautiful and ever-blooming. Each garden is circular, about thirty feet in diameter and entirely closed by a twelve-foot high wall. Some of the gardens have a variety of vegetables, including corn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, rhubarb and squash. Some also have 1D4 fruit trees and/or a small patch of berries. Some of the other gardens might contain hallucinogenic plants or even large carnivorous ones.
2. Art Studio: Your nostrils are assaulted by an overwhelming odor of oil paints and solvents. There is a worktable set in the center of field of pristine easels, primed canvases, completed painting, palettes, framing tools of every variety. The table is covered with stacks of reference materials, notebooks and documents. There are paints of almost any kind, thinners and other chemicals can be found scattered throughout the room on shelves. Only the far end of the room is bare of ornamentation, the space filled with part carved blocks of marble, and easels of unfinished artwork.
The servant in question fancied himself an artist or sculptor, and every possible artistic tool has been provided. These are kept in army green metal lockers. Underneath a tarp in one corner of the room are two wooden barrels, each holding 25 gallons of turpentine.
3. Carpentry: The air smells of freshly sawn oak. A workbench stands before you bare, each tool of its accustomed clutter hanging in uncomfortable disuse from the appropriate hook on the wall. The scored and pitted tabletop shines under a new layer of wax. Pendant light fixtures with shallow hoods brighten the room. Dozens of logs and boughs of wood are stacked neatly against the wall ranging in lengths from just larger than a man's arm in length and breadth up to the breadth of a man's body and ten paces in length. Each log has been carefully cut and polished so as to display the beauty of its grain and remove any danger of splinters. Many of the logs are hardy and rare hard woods of considerable value.
The servant had carpentry as his hobby. The tools are clean. The fixed machinery is lit from every angle to avoid harsh shadows, so that moving parts clearly can be seen to be moving. Usually the machinery stands silent: circular-saw bench, surface planer, band saw, drill press, hollow-chisel mortiser, etc. At the moment, the servant is working on four large reclining chairs, from a Gustav Stickley design, are in production. With broad canted arms, square-baluster sides, through-tenon construction, and exposed pegs, the handsome chairs would be comfortable, too, once a leather-covered pillow and spring-supported seat were installed. There is also a dining table, mahogany with ebony inlays, in the style of Greene and Greene, in the final month of curing after receiving a meticulous French polish with garnet shellac dissolved in industrial alcohol.
4. Sculpting Studio: Before you stands a single block of marble, which has been chipped away to reveal a vaguely human form. Chips of white stone cover the floor around this work like newly fallen snow. A workbench along one wall is covered with a half-completed portrait in stained glass. Sheets of the colorful material, as well as rolls of the lead framing and solder used to hold it in place, line several tall shelves beside the table. Several coffin-sized slabs of white marble are stacked like firewood in the corner.
The servant was a sculptor.
5. Study: You stand in a small windowless room paneled in squares of dark wood. The ceiling is tiled. Dark wood bookshelves are crowded with volumes. Banquettes covered in soft red leather take almost every inch of wall space. Looking above you see exposed beams of darkly treated wood crisscrossing with one another across an expanse of cream-colored ceiling. Beneath your feet is a thick fine old-patterned carpet graced with Oriental throw rugs. Atop an oak desk is a scattering of books and papers, and a strange typing machine.
The servant's hobby was reading and writing.
6. Pottery Studio: The floor under your feet is glass that has been divided into staggered planes. An array of stone tools are set into the angled walls. About the room are various sculpting equipment: a kiln, a supply of clay, a small firing oven in the corner, and several small tables.
The servant's hobby was making pottery.
Bar
This is apparently some sort of tavern where the servants are allowed to mingle and enjoy themselves -- all hard wood and tile. It is brightly lit by gilded lamps and filled with those who must be servants out of uniform. The ceiling above you is covered in polished brass and polished fretwork. The chairs and tables are beautifully carved with burgundy buttoned-satin lining. Low walls surround each arrangement making them islands on the green and golden floor tiles. Each wall is pierced with lacy carving so no eavesdropper can listen unseen. One wall has been replaced with polished green-streaked marble columns and balustrades. Breezes waft golden oiled silk curtains in.
Things to See:
The Jaguars: In the center of the chamber, two shiny gold jaguars hunch on their rear legs, their front paws stretching upward, showing long, sleek bodies. Around their necks, rhinestone collars glisten from the sunlight streaming through the plate glass doors and the muted lights from vulviform amber-onyx sconces.
Unknown to all, these two gold jaguars are unique servitors set to watch over the servants of the Citadel as they relax.
The Potted Plants: Tall circular silver containers with gold branches and leaves resembling palm tress are appropriately placed throughout the room.
The Bar: Bloody light glints off the elaborate distilleries made from platinum and gold and reflects off the mirrors and gleaming shelves filled with a starling array of ornate, weirdly-shaped bottles that lies behind the zinc-topped bar. The long back-bar is covered in a mural of a Rousseau-like jungle with vegetation more lush than any in reality, and with mysterious feline eyes peering from between rain-jeweled leaves.
Second Bar
You are in a long, tubular room that has been furnished with plush-upholstered swivel chairs and oddly shaped sofas. At the far end, over eighty feet, is a cosy bistro. A harpsichord with shining golden strings stands upon a pedestal of polished wood directly under a small light. The room is lit by a soft glow from panels placed high upon the walls. A chandelier.
A long, tubular room furnished with plush-upholstered swivel chairs and modular sofas. At the far end of the compartment, which had to be at least eighty feet long, is an area that looks not like a bar but a cozy bistro. A harpsichord with golden strings stands on a pedestal of polished wood, highlighted by a small spotlight. Indirect lighting glows from panels placed high along the walls, and dependent from the ceiling halfway down the compartment is a chandelier. The bar itself is beautiful: beaten copper, with cabinets inlaid with frosted glass, and stainless steel fixtures gleaming with the overhead light.
Cabernet
Mail Room
The sounds of Sending Stones echo through the hallways as you approach this room. When you enter, you see the large space lacks an exterior wall in one corner, and through this opening occasionally arrive messengers on hippogrifs and other fantastic beasts. Bags of holding are emptied onto the floor, revealing stacks of packages and letters from all over the realm. Long tables hold mail being sorted, with several bored-looking humans bustling about in organization.
The Fifth Level:
Also known as the Halls of Cleanliness, this is where the Citadel's extensive laundry facilities are situated. Residents of the Citadel may deposit soiled clothes in any of the appropriate hampers which quickly find their way to this level.
Laundry
It feels like a furnace here, but large fans spin behind grilles, most of them turned toward a ventilation shaft. They seem to be trying, but failing, to force the hot air toward the vents.
Metal stairs, almost utilitarian, has lead you to this vast hall. Towering shelves meet your gaze all stacked with white linen sheets, blankets and towels. Enormous machines wash, hum and shudder. Their number is prodigious, extending out to an artificial horizon, and extend upward as high as three hundred feet. As you walk by each, you see the slosh of sudsy water behind doors of polished crystal, you see the flash of color tumble through hot air.
Things to See:
Clothing Fabricator: The most wondrous of these room’s machines is the clothing fabricator, weighing 400 pounds and taking up 40 cubic feet automatically produces clothing of different cuts, weights, patterns and colors, using a simple laser scanning booth to tailor and fit it to individual taste and measure. All residents of the Citadel have these professionally tailored uniforms, in case an intruder should subdue a resident and steal the uniform as the poor fit will give him away. The clothing fabricator is voice controlled; a holographic screen or projector shows what the user would look like in various selections. Fitting and tailoring can take as little as 15 minutes. The fabricator is limited to the kind of materials it has in storage.
The Pile: Piled carelessly on the floor before them are countless clothes ranging from filthy rags to uniforms to precious finery of every description piled high to the ceiling.
The Washing Devices: Central to the task of washing clothes are the giant washing machines capable of cleaning any clothing instantly. A second machine is a high-capacity drier. Both are huge glass tubs, cylindrical cone-topped with a surface that shimmers with colors passing from violet to blue, washers—each with a single glaring porthole eye—tiny gargoyles stick their heads out at irregular intervals, along with several tentacle arms. When activated, it fills itself with water from built in spigots, dumps soap powder into itself, jostles itself to create suds, and then uses its arms to manipulate dishes, rags, and sponges. These machines can wash, clean, fit, modify and even recycle old clothes. There is also a miniature incinerator capable to breaking down solid and liquid waste, in addition to destroying contaminated or diseased clothing. There are tens of thousands of these enormous machines lining the corridors of this entire level.
At regular intervals is a storage closet for the newly cleaned clothing and towels, which are sent via the service elevator, its doors stand open and a fully loaded brass laundry cart is wedged in the opening, halfway into the elevator car, dumbwaiter to their owners.
Should the PCs attempt to pull a random set of clothes from either the pile or the machines themselves, roll on this table to see the result:
1% Fancy clothes: Clothes made of silks and precious fabrics. They are not only fancy in material, but in design as well. Value ranges from 500 silver to 10,000 gold per outfit. Characters can get 10-25% of the retail value.
2% Alien clothes: These are articles of clothing that are for non-humanoid species. As they have to be custom-made, cost is a little on the high side, but the market extremely limited. Worth 2D6xl00 silver per outfit or set of clothing. Characters are lucky to get 2% of the retail value; 10-25% in a market where the clothes fits the local population.
3% Uniforms: Military or civilian uniforms. Value is around silver credits per uniform, but on the open market the characters are lucky to get 5% of that, unless they can find someone (most likely an enemy) who would love to buy uniforms of a rival or enemy to infiltrate their ranks. In this latter case, the sellers could get 20-40% of the retail value.
4% Handmade Fabrics, from sweaters and scarves to blankets. They sell for 100-1000 silver each depending on size and what the article is.
5% Silks: Silk is typically bundled on a roll about 100 feet (30.5 m) long and four feet (1.2 m) wide, so a total of 400 square feet (122 m) of silk per roll. A single cargo container can easily hold a hundred bolts of silk. With a value of 100 gold a square foot, a single bolt could be worth 40,000 gold. Characters should be able to get 50-70% of the value from buyers who are going to charge double or triple in resale.
6% Precious fabrics: Most are fabrics that are 90% real and not synthetic. This would include cotton, wool, animal furs and similar. Value varies according to the current fashion trends in the outside world. Currently cotton is in fashion, so the average cost per bolt of materials is 400 silver. Characters should be able to get 40-50% of the value from wholesale buyers, and 60-80% from individual customers.