The remainder of this adventure is focused on the central structure of the House of the Beast itself, the ancient temple of Rovagug built at the command of the efreeti Jhavhul and now the lair of the Carrion King and his favored gnolls. The majority of the chambers within the House of the Beast are unlit—but in some areas (as indicated in the text) the gnolls maintain old lanterns to provide light to slaves or allies who can’t see in the dark.
The House of the Beast can be split into five distinct sections, each with its own use and theme, as detailed below. In all cases, the structure is incredibly old, with cracks decorating the walls, filth and rubble and vermin cluttering the floor, and thick dusty cobwebs hanging from ceiling corners.
The Great Dome (area G): The only aboveground portion of the House of the Beast is this structure. The gnolls patrol here periodically, but for the most part have left this area to the elements.
The Middle Temple (area H): The most extensive level is the first underground level; the area below the Great Dome being where the bulk of the gnolls dwell. Several outlying underground basements below the northern buildings are connected by a network of tunnels the gnolls call the “Warrens,” an area the gnolls have lost control of and which is now controlled by a band of brutish escaped slaves. The air here is somewhat foul, smelling of carrion.
The Lower Temple (area I): The realm of the Carrion King and the core of his power is this deep level, once the main temple of the House of the Beast and where Jhavhul met with his petitioners and granted their wishes. The air in the Lower Temple is almost unbearably putrid due to the carrion pit in area I2. Upon first visiting the Lower Temple, each character must make a Level 3 Fortitude save to avoid being nauseated for 1d10 rounds and then sickened for 2d4 hours. A successful save negates both effects—characters need make new saves only if they leave the Lower Temple for more than a day before returning. The inhabitants of the House of the Beast are accustomed to the reek and need not make these saving throws.
The Deep Vaults (areas J and K): Under the temple itself lie two additional sub-levels; the chambers of the Stone Speakers and the Pit of Screaming Ghosts. These were once the hidden homes of Jhavhul’s agents and the efreeti himself when he visited the temple, and used to serve as the entrance to the chambers much deeper under Pale Mountain where Xotani’s corpse lies. This route is closed now, but in the last adventure in Legacy of Fire the route is reopened.
The only aboveground portion of the House of the Beast is this structure. The gnolls patrol here periodically, but for the most part have left this area to the elements.
Along the southern side of the great dome curves a set of crumbling marble stairs that climbs to a forty-foot-wide stage and a pair of rust-encrusted doors.
The doors are so rusty that their once exquisitely carved facade is now indecipherable and their hinges have corroded into the doors themselves. It’s only a Level 5 Might check to bash down the huge doors as a result. Beneath the alcoves, along the western floor and in the northeast corner are a pair of holes that narrow into tunnels that lead down to area H2 below. A Small or smaller creature can navigate these tunnels easily, but a Medium creature must succeed in a Level 6 Escape Artist check to wriggle through them.
Upon a slightly raised dais stand six wide stone columns inlaid with tiles made from bits of colored glass. On either side, stairs twist inward, leading up to a large atrium. Heaps of yellowed skulls lie piled about in the alcoves to the north and south of the central walk that approaches a large pair of doors to the east.
Creatures: The western atrium serves as the gnolls’ main entrance. They keep it both trapped and heavily guarded at all times. A half-dozen guards hide within the shadows of the alcoves. When trespassers approach, they hold their attacks until the trap on the stairs springs. If trespassers happen to take the time to search for traps, they attack as soon as the trespassers become preoccupied with disabling it.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 8
Armor: 2
Damage: 4 damage + bite 2 damage
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: The gnolls initiate combat with a volley of arrows, then charge in swinging their axes. They use the higher ground to their advantage and attempt to push advancing attackers back into the toxic stair spikes whenever possible.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, battleaxe, longbow with 20 arrows.
Morale: Until they lose more than half their number, the gnolls fight until slain. Once their ranks deplete, the remaining gnolls break for the temple doors, retreating to area G3 and down the stairs into area H1 while yelping for reinforcements.
Trap: The short flight of stairs leading up to the atrium is trapped, but the trap is easily bypassed by stepping over every other step (a stunt the long-legged gnolls accomplish easily). The even-numbered steps have been hollowed out and covered with a thin layer of stretched leather painted to look like weathered stone. Anyone attempting to step on a false riser finds his foot tearing through into a bed of poisoned spikes hidden within the step.
Type mechanical; Search Level 4; Disable Device Level 4
Effects
Trigger touch; Reset manual
Effect caltrop spikes (Level 4, 1 point of speed damage plus poison); poison (Huge scorpion venom, Might Defense check Level 4, damage 2 Might/2 Might)
A narrow hallway circles the inside of the dome, its walls crawling with beetles. Loose chunks of plaster and bits of rubble clutter the floor, and old smears of blood stain it brown.
A flight of stairs winds down around the outer wall of the inner dome to the east, leading to area H1 below. The three doors leading into area G4 are quite stout, all barred from the G3 side.
Several coils of thick rope and a few bloodstained grappling hooks lie in a heap near the western door; the gnolls use these ropes and hooks to drag back creatures that have been poisoned by the scorpion trapped in area G4 while the giant vermin is busy eating other food—the venom they harvest from the bodies is their primary source of poison for traps and other uses.
The dome climbs high overhead. Long ago, the inner ceiling collapsed, leaving its timbers and skeletal framework exposed beneath its brass-plated shingles. The ground below is cluttered with rubble, heaps of animal skeletons, and countless bloodstains.
Creature: An enormous 22-foot-long deathstalker scorpion is trapped in this dome, a feat that cost the Carrion King six of his warriors in luring and trapping the beast within. The gnolls keep the scorpion as a poison source, although as a general rule only the Carrion Guards and some of the traps in the complex use the poison regularly, as after too many fatal mishaps, most of the gnolls have developed a healthy fear of poisoning their weapons.
The scorpion itself doesn’t know the difference between gnolls and any other potential meal, but generally focuses on only one target at a time, leaving other creatures alone as long as nothing else attacks it while it attempts to poison and eat its chosen victim.
Health: 20
Armor: 3 (Level 4 Speed Defense)
Damage: 2 claw attacks 6 damage + grab; stinger 6 damage + poison
Movement: Long
Size: Huge
Modification: Climb and Perception as level 8.
Combat: Deathstalker scorpions paralyze their targets with their stinger. Then grab their paralyzed foes start to consume them.
Poison: The target is paralyzed.
Grab: Grabbed targets suffer 5 points of constricting damage each round.
Morale: The giant scorpions fight to the death.
The most extensive level is the first underground level; the area below the Great Dome being where the bulk of the gnolls dwell. Several outlying underground basements below the northern buildings are connected by a network of tunnels the gnolls call the “Warrens,” an area the gnolls have lost control of and which is now controlled by a band of brutish escaped slaves. The air here is somewhat foul, smelling of carrion.
In the center of the large chamber are five dens of scattered bones and matted fur. A curving flight of stone stairs descends from above to the northeast, supported by a dense colonnade, while to the southwest a second flight descends deeper into the earth. To the north, a crude wooden barricade has been erected over the mouth of a tunnel, while to the east a larger path through the mounds of sediment leads into a large, dark hall. The southern wall appears to have partially collapsed, but glimpses of another large space can be had through gaps in the fallen masonry.
Zayifid’s initial research led him to believe Shirak (and thus the Scroll of Kakishon) was buried along with her kin in a series of crypts located to the north of the temple. He convinced the Carrion King that expanding the Middle Temple into the northern catacombs would be a good idea.
While Zayifid’s speculations failed to locate Shirak’s tomb, the digging did indeed expand the size of the middle temple by connecting it to several other building basements.
The northeastern stairs lead up to area G3, while the southwestern ones lead down to area I1. The cracks in the pile of rubble to the south can be navigated easily by Small or smaller creatures, but a Medium creature must make a Level 6 Escape Artist check to squeeze through into area H2 beyond. The five dens in the middle of the room are where the gnolls keep their five hyaenodons when they’re not on duty in area E above.
Creatures: Although the Carrion King initially wanted to use the northern tunnels to expand his domain, the slaves his gnolls were using recently rebelled and seized control of the warrens. The Carrion King has already lost several gnolls to the savage and desperate slaves—worse, the slaves have joined forces with a small group of pugwampis, tiny gremlins the gnolls loathe, yet who venerate gnolls as gods. For now, the Carrion King has ordered the northern passage boarded up, and has posted three Carrion Guards here to make sure the slaves and pugwampis stay out—the king hasn’t quite decided how to kill off the problem, but if his guards capture the PCs, he’s not above seizing their gear, giving the PC prisoners crude weapons, then sealing them into the warrens in hopes that the slaves and PCs will kill each other.
Unless the PCs have already depleted the tribe’s supply of hyaenodons after multiple fights in area E, three of the slavering beasts sleep here. They lunge to their feet and run to the Carrion Guards when called, but if they notice the PCs first, they charge in frenzy, eager to attack the intruders.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 10
Armor: 2
Damage: Scimitar 4 damage; Longbow 4 damage + poison; stingchuck 4 damage + Level 3 nausea (1 damage vermin (no armor defense) and no action for 2 rounds)
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: During Combat The Carrion Guards use their stingchucks and call the hyaenodons to their side in the first round of combat, mounting up and then moving around the perimeter of the chamber to keep as much distance between themselves and the PCs as they can. They favor using their poison arrows, but if that tactic isn’t working they charge in to batter the PCs with axe and mount.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, mwk scimitar, mwk composite longbow with 20 arrows (poisoned with Huge scorpion venom; Level 4 Might Defense Check, 4/4 Might damage), stingchuck; cypher potion of healing (restore 1d6 pool points)
Morale: Although brave, these Carrion Guards also understand the value of retreat. As soon as one of them dies, the others split up. One attempts to race downstairs to warn the Carrion King while the other heads to the west to alert the main body of gnolls dwelling there.
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: 5 points + trip
Armor: 1
Movement: Long
Size: Large
Modifications: Speed defense, Tracking, and Trip as level 4
Combat: They lunge to their feet and run to the Carrion Guards when called, but if they notice the PCs first, they charge in frenzy, eager to attack the intruders.
Morale The monitor lizards fight to the death.
The floor appears badly damaged, scarred with cracks and huge gaping holes. Pieces of old wood and rusted metal bars cover some of the damaged areas, though they hardly seem safe. Along the north wall, loose rock and other debris neatly fills a wide arch, blocking the passage save for a few narrow gaps; likewise, in places the ceiling of the chamber has fallen, exposing small gaps to reveal the sky above.
The floor of this room has suffered extensive damage, and a considerable portion in the center is missing. A Level 4 Knowledge (architecture or dungeoneering) check determines the entire room is unstable. The entire floor is difficult terrain, and a Medium creature runs a 20% chance per round of causing a 5-foot-square section of the floor to cave in, dropping him 30 feet into area I8 below. For each size category larger than Medium, the chance to fall through the floor doubles (40% for Large, 80% for Huge, automatic for Gargantuan or Colossal).
Small and smaller creatures have no chance of falling through the floor.
The holes in the north wall lead to area H1; those in the ceiling to area G1. A Medium creature can wriggle through with a Level 6 Escape Artist check while a Small or smaller creature can do so automatically.
The large hole in the floor opens directly into area I8 below. If the unchosen in that area still live, the shuffling sounds of their movement and the occasional low growl and bark wafts up from the hole; if combat or loud noise erupts in this chamber, the unchosen below set up a cacophonous din, and their roars and howls are sure to alert the entire Lower Temple.
Creatures: Although this room hasn’t been used by the gnolls ever, it is far from unoccupied. A single crazed goblin named Blobog dwells here, a mad cleric of Lamashtu from across the Inner Sea who received strange visions of heretics who were using some of the Demon Queen’s most secret rituals for their own needs. Blobog was not the only priest Lamashtu contacted through dreams in this manner, but he is the only one to have survived the journey to Pale Mountain—Lamashtu’s disappointment in her more regional worshipers is the main reason she turned to more distant minions to correct the travesty that has been brought to the sacred trepanation rituals practiced by many of her faithful.
Unfortunately, Blobog surviving the journey to Pale Mountain amounted as much to luck and stealth as anything else. The goblin has been forced to concede, even in his madness, that the Carrion King and his brutish minions (particularly the hulking unchosen) are more than he can handle. He’s been waiting here, hiding in this room and sneaking out only to scrounge food and water, for several months, watching the gnolls and praying for Lamashtu to give him the opportunity to finish the task she’s set him on. While Lamashtu has more or less forgotten Blobog and the slight of the unchosen (demon lords are nothing if not easily distracted), this won’t prevent Blobog from interpreting the PCs as divine sendings from the Mother of Monsters come to aid him in his time of need. That Blobog’s needs and the PCs’ goals match relatively well means that, if the PCs can stomach an alliance with the disgusting and cruel goblin, they could have a relatively strong ally if they play their cards right.
Blobog frequently whispers prayers to Lamashtu aloud in Goblin. Several of the gnolls have heard these whispers, and more than a few have fallen to his sudden attacks. None who have survived have had a good look at the goblin, and they know him only to be a swift killer. Among the gnolls, the goblin has come to be known as the whispering stalker, and the Carrion King has grown increasingly annoyed at his gnolls not being able to handle the situation. After a close call with several Carrion Guards a month ago, Blobog has held off any further slayings, hoping to let the heat die down before resuming his attacks. The gnolls have only now started to accept the fact that the whispering stalker has moved on, but the memories of Blobog’s swift strikes linger.
Blobog is a consummate liar and obviously mad, but still knows many of the Temple’s ins and outs. He hides if he hears the PCs approaching, but as soon as he realizes that the PCs aren’t gnolls he climbs up on a rock and hails them in Common, asking them if the Mother sent them to help with the heretics. As long as the PCs avoid crass comments about Lamashtu and don’t attack, Blobog accepts any story they give him—in his mind, the PCs were sent by Lamashtu to aid him. It shouldn’t take much talking to get Blobog to report what he knows, although his madness makes some of his reports difficult to understand. The What Blobog Knows sidebar lists the information he’s able to share with the PCs.
Although Blobog and the PCs have much the same goal, the goblin still doesn’t wholly trust them—they’re not goblins, after all, and it’s unlikely that any of the PCs bear deformities that mark them as “touched by the Mother.” He won’t agree to accompany the PCs in their crusade against the gnolls unless made helpful (his initial attitude is indifferent), but he will continue to skulk about the complex as the PCs explore. Once the PCs have met Blobog, you can use him to save the PCs if they get in over their heads by having the goblin leap out of the shadows in the iddle of a fight to attack the PCs’ enemies, or even have the goblin attack an enemy first and thus warn the PCs of an upcoming ambush.
In addition to the following, Blobog knows a fair amount about the layout of the House of the Beast. He can sketch a map of the Middle Temple for the PCs and areas I1, I2, and I8 of the Lower Temple, and can warn the PCs about what kinds of foes and dangers they can expect in these areas.
Of course, Blobog’s madness makes him unreliable—feel free to sprinkle his advice with errors as you wish, using the following bits of information as examples.
The Gnolls: “The gnolls have turned their backs on the Mother. They think Bug in Ground better, but Bug in Ground is just a Bug in Ground. Good for eating, maybe, if you’re tall enough. But that ends now you’re here! You kill gnolls and Carrion King, yeah? Show them Bug in Ground not matter!”
The Troglodytes: “When I first get here, lizards and gnolls friendly. But they get in fight, and gnolls kill many lizards. Lizards now live in building over that way.” He points west. “They maybe help us kill gnolls? They worship Bug in Ground too, and smell plenty bad, so I not ask them yet. You go ask them!”
The Unchosen: “The Growing of the Third Eye is sacred lore of the Mother, and one of her sons has given it to the gnolls. He is a heretic, and he uses it to make his own monsters. This is for the Mother! He would think himself the Mother, when the Mother is the Mother! Is it really that complicated? Anyway, he does it wrong, and gnolls he pokes holes in turn big and mean and even more stupid. Big like Carrion King. But Carrion King not stupid, so be careful there!”
The Maggot Throne: “Carrion King sits on Maggot Throne. Sacrifices to Bug in Ground get thrown into pit nearby his throne. A smaller bug lives down there, but still plenty big enough to eat all of us! Don’t get fed to the bug!”
The Heretic: “He calls himself Madfang. He lives down below, and you can tell it’s him because of all the knives and metal pokers he has in his pockets. Oh. Also? Death is too easy for heretic. He need die bad. You cut him open and show him inside ropes and then maybe let bugs eat his inside ropes while he watches?”
The Carrion King: “Carrion King is the worst. You kill him, other gnolls maybe give up and run away, yes? He down below usually, on throne. Kill him quick. He have friend Rokova that I think might want to kill him too, you know. Maybe you get Rokova to help you kill the King?”
This creature resembles a bipedal-like humanoid with dusky russet and brown fur. Its eyes are yellow and wields two lethal kukri and an onyx symbol of a jackal's head around its neck.
Health: 13
Damage: 2 attacks with mrk kukri 3 damage/crossbow 3 damage + poison (Level 3/Unconscious)
Armor: 2; Level 5 Speed Defense
Movement: Short
Size: Small
Modification: Tasks related to stealth and setting traps as level 6.
Languages: Common, Goblin
Combat: During Combat Blobog prefers hit-and-run tactics, hiding whenever enemies approach and attacking only if he’s sure he’ll be able to take down his foe with a sneak attack. He casts invisibility if his first attack fails, then uses his invisibility to gain a second sneak attack the next round. His offensive spells are for cases where an enemy doesn’t quickly succumb to a few sneak attacks, delaying pursuit long enough for him to scurry back into the shadows and eventually back to this room to hide and wait for things to quiet back down.
Invisibility
Sneak Attack: +2 damage
Cause Fear: Affect target within short range with thoughts and visions that fill them with dread. They have a disadvantage for the next minute.
Inflict Wounds: Touch attack that does 4 damage that ignores armor.
Equipment: Onyx unholy symbol of Lamashtu (Mother's Gift Cypher), +1 chain shirt, masterwork kukris (2), light crossbow with 10 bolts poisoned with blue whinnis (Level 3, 1 Might damage/Unconsciousness)
Mother's Gift Cypher (Level 5): Projects a small physical explosive up to a long distance away that explodes and creates a momentary teleportation gate. A random creature whose level is equal to or less than the cypher’s level appears through the gate and attacks the closest target. After about one minute, the creature vanishes.
Morale: Blobog is insane, not fearless. If brought below 3 hp and unable to flee, he cries and begs for mercy, only to seize the first chance to escape he gets.
Thick pillars of stone line this oversized hall, draped in cobwebby ropes strung with tattered prayer flags. Along the north and south walls, various doors, arches, and stairwells offer exit. In the center of the room a pair of elaborately tiled, diamondshaped columns etched with coils of twisting vermin rise up; the column to the east is hollow and contains an ancient iron staircase that spirals down into darkness.
The stairs in the eastern pillar descend to area I6. The second column appears solid, but a Level 5 Search check reveals a secret door that opens to a small room inside the pillar. Holes in the room allow anyone inside to hear and see things occurring within the rest of the hallway, seemingly without being detected. The chamber amplifies words spoken within the exterior chamber, granting listeners an asset circumstance bonus to Listen checks made while enclosed within.
The unlabeled rooms that open off the sides of the main hall are all storerooms containing poorly preserved meat, barrels of water, poorly maintained weapons and armor, and other supplies like clothing, rope, nails, tools, and in a few foul-smelling barrels, a revolting “drink” made from fermented hyaenodon milk. It should be noted that gnolls (like hyenas) possess rather caustic stomach acids capable of digesting all manner of organic materials, even bones. While they can easily stomach this drink, any non-gnoll foolish enough to sample it must make a Level 4 Might check or become nauseated for 1d10 rounds and then be sickened for an additional 1d6 hours.
A Level 5 Search made of the wall between this area and H7 reveals several small vents in the wall 9 feet off the ground that ensure at least some flow of fresh air between this room and the smaller one. These vents are only a few inches across—too small to navigate, but enough to hint to a chamber beyond the wall.
Creature: A single Carrion Guard is always posted in this watch chamber, with particular orders to keep an eye to the west for intruders. If he sees intruders, he raises the alarm by throwing a single air elemental gem into the main hall and ordering the Large air elemental to attack the PCs. The resulting din is enough to alert the area.
If the alarm is raised, the PCs face the elemental for 2 rounds. On round three, the gnolls from area H5 join the battle. If the battle’s still going on by round seven, the gnolls mounted on hyaenodons from area H1 arrive to join the battle as well.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 10
Armor: 2
Damage: Scimitar 4 damage; Longbow 4 damage + poison; stingchuck 4 damage + Level 3 nausea (1 damage vermin (no armor defense) and no action for 2 rounds)
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: A Carrion Guard always opens combat by hurling his stingchuck if he can, then follows up with shots from his longbow, moving between shots as necessary to maintain ranged advantage. When mounted on a hyaenodon, a Carrion Guard usually takes 1 or 2 rounds to attack at range before riding into melee to continue the fight with scimitar and to allow his mount a chance to bite at foes.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, mwk scimitar, mwk composite longbow with 20 arrows (poisoned with Huge scorpion venom; Level 4 Might Defense Check, 4/4 Might damage), stingchuck; cypher potion of healing (restore 1d6 pool points)
Morale: Carrion Guards are fiercely loyal to their king and fight to the death.
A stingchuck is a foul bag made of a human’s head with the brain removed and the skull heavily scored so that, when the stingchuck is thrown, the whole thing breaks and splits like a ripe melon upon striking a target. The gnolls fill stingchucks with dozens of stinging insects patiently (and often painfully) harvested from nests on the lower slopes of Pale Mountain.
A stingchuck is a grenade-like weapon. When it strikes a target, it douses that target with dozens of ravenous biting and stinging vermin, inflicting 1d6 points of damage and forcing a Level 3 Might Defense save to avoid being nauseated for 2 rounds. Each round a victim remains nauseated by a stingchuck, he takes an additional 1 point of damage from the biting vermin (bypasses armor). All creatures within 5 feet of a bursting stingchuck take 1 point of damage from the biting insects that pepper them, but need not make Might Defense check to avoid being nauseated.
This cloud-like creature has dark hollows reminiscent of eyes and a mouth, and a howling wind whips it into ominous shapes.
Health: 24
Armor: 0 (immune to non-magical physical attacks)
Damage Inflicted: 4 to 7 points; see Combat
Movement: Long
Size: Large
Modifications: See Combat for escalating attack level modification.
Combat: An air elemental attacks with blast of concussive air blast or debris up to short range. The more the elemental blows, the more debris it can hit its foes.
• 1 round: deals 4 points of damage; attacks as level 5
• 3 rounds: deals 5 points of damage; attacks as level 6
• 5 rounds: deals 6 points of damage; attacks as level 7
• 7+ rounds: deals 7 points of damage; attacks as level 8
If an air elemental hasn’t hit a foe within the last minute, its combat stats drop back to its level 4 baseline.
Anyone gets within 5 feet of the air elemental must make a might defense check or be swept up and used to strike a random target within short range. Damage depends on the number of rounds the air elemental has been in battle.
A wide archway opens into a large square room. Along the room’s outer walls, statues of robed, morbidly obese humans sit cross-legged, perhaps in some sort of praying position. The heads of all the statues have been smashed off. In their place rest small piles of humanoid skulls. In the center of the room four iron braziers surround a marble font half full of brownish, stagnant-looking water.
This room was used by the cult of Rovagug to anoint new high priests, but the gnolls of the Carrion King have no real use for the chamber. The water in the font carries blinding sickness (Level 4 Might Defense Check, onset 1d3 days/drop 1 step in damage track per day/2 failures target needs to make level 4 Might defense check, failure is blindness), a contagion the gnolls are particularly good at maintaining by adding new water and corruption to the font to maintain the level. The gnolls mostly use the font to torture prisoners; dunking their heads in the befouled water and forcing victims to swallow it, or holding their heads below the surface until they drown. Most of the skulls resting on the statues came from drowning victims. Still, gnolls are stupid, and sometimes dare each other to drink from it to prove their courage.
The three rooms in this wing are all identical—each contains six or so cramped, nest-like beds cluttered with bits of rotten meat, bone, and matted gnoll fur. These rooms reek particularly strongly of gnoll urine. The stairs in the central hall lead down to area I10.
Creatures: These are the barracks for the standard gnolls who dwell in the Carrion King’s court—the Carrion Guard and Initiates dwell elsewhere. Gnolls found here are off duty, and spend their time lounging about, bickering, play fighting, gambling, and sleeping. During the day, each of these rooms contains four gnolls, while at night there are only two gnolls per room. The gnolls often fight among themselves over the rooms, with the strongest seizing the choicest sleeping areas, and the weaker ones left to sleep in the common areas and hallways—simply counting the nests won’t give an accurate tally of the gnolls that dwell here. There are no weaklings, elderly, or young among the gnolls of the Carrion King’s court—they recruit their numbers from the outlying tribes, selecting the strongest.
Very few gnolls die of old age in the House of the Beast.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 8
Armor: 2
Damage: battleaxe 4 damage + bite 2 damage
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: Gnolls relish combat, but only when they have the obvious advantage of numbers. In other situations, they prefer to avoid combat except as a means of winning a kill from another hunter, or as a clever ambush to bring down a large meal. These hyena-men see no value in courage or valor, instead preferring to flee once it becomes clear that victory is not possible, noting that it is better to run with tail tucked away than to lose one’s tail entirely.
During combat, gnolls use a strange mixture of pack tactics and individual standoffs. If a gnoll feels that it is winning, it attempts to take down a weaker being rather than aiding its fellows. If the gnolls are struggling, they gang up on a powerful leader and try to take that creature down, in the hopes of forcing its allies to flee.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, battleaxe, longbow with 20 arrows.
Morale: Gnolls will retreat if their health drops below 3.
This hallway has mostly collapsed—the gnolls never bothered to clear out the tunnels. Manually clearing the earth from this tunnel takes 1d4 hours of work per 10 feet.
Burrowing creatures can move through the rubble with ease. The door to area H7 and the stairs in the central minaret at area H6a won’t open until the passage is cleared.
This room is difficult to reach, requiring either hours of back-breaking effort to clear the hall in area H6, bashing through a wall from area H3, or magic to access.
This chamber is quite clean and has been converted into a wellorganized study. In the center of the room, two long, wooden tables are arranged into an L-shaped work area. Atop one table sits a collection of measuring tools, a small hourglass, a compass, and an abacus. The other holds a wooden stand fitted with an oversized magnifying lens suspended above several pieces of yellowed parchment with tiny calligraphic writing. Nearby, a small handwritten notebook lies open face-down on the table.
Zayifid uses this room as a secret study, entering and exiting by using ethereal jaunt or a potion of gaseous form. He generally spends 1 day of the week here—time the Carrion King assumes he spends on one of his many walkabouts in the surrounding area. Much of Zayifid’s time here is passed deciphering numerous writings and legends surrounding the history of the House of the Beast, its creation many centuries ago by a mysterious “spirit of fire” to serve as a place for mortals to worship him, and the likely existence of the Pit of Screaming Ghosts somewhere deeper under the temple’s lower level.
If the PCs confront Zayifid elsewhere in the House of the Beast, he retreats here to recover. If the PCs discover this room before encountering him, they should not have their first encounter with him here.
This room contains several of Zayifid’s personal belongings, clothing, journals, and additional notes which incriminate him as an imposter. Among these belongings are the clothes worn by Zayifid on his journey to Kelmarane at the start of this adventure, along with a heavily annotated copy of The Birth of Light and Truth, the holy book of the church of Sarenrae. The last several pages of this copy, normally blank for the owner to record his own experiences, are filled with notes and page references to elsewhere in the book. Written in Terran, anyone who studies these pages for a few minutes can quickly deduce that they are notes written by a person who was preparing to pose as a priest of Sarenrae in order to trick a band of heroes into raiding the House of the Beast so that the unnamed author can step in and take control of the place once the Carrion King is dead.
The handwritten notebook contains page after page of prayers written (in Terran) to Rovagug. Closer examination reveals that these prayers have apparently been transcribed from another source (see area I10) and then heavily analyzed, dissected, and examined. The focus of this analysis seems to be a search for an entrance to a place called “The Pit of Screaming Ghosts,” a location the unnamed author believes to be the crypts of the House of the Beast and the resting place of someone named Shirak. The last page of the notebook mentions something called the Scroll of Kakishon, said to be a great treasure worth a fortune that was buried with the gnoll Shirak ages ago, yet no further information about this scroll can be found in the notes.
Treasure: The abacus is a masterwork of lush exotic woods and precision balance worth 350 gp. A small box holds a stash of 150 gold coins, seven tiny garnets worth 35 gp each, and a block of incense of meditation.
Piles of broken stone partially block this archway. Several hideous scarecrows made from the headless corpses of slain troglodytes stand propped against the walls here.
The doorway to the west leads to area C5.
This chamber reeks of wild beasts. About the room, wooden stakes pounded into the mud-brick walls secure several dangling ropes with leather collars. A mosaic of a huge, snarling, insect-like beast with bulging eyes and yellow mandibles covers the floor. Its many arms clutch falchions, gemstones, and screaming women.
The image on the floor here is of Rovagug, identifiable with a Level 4 Knowledge (religion) check, although the depiction of him wielding falchions is unusual (this was an embellishment Jhavhul had added).
Creatures: The first time the PCs enter the northern warrens (areas H9–H19), the gnolls are making a strong push into the warrens to recapture or exterminate the escaped slaves that have holed up here. A pair of Carrion Guards stands watch here with six slaves who remain loyal to them, having just released one of the hulking unchosen into the tunnels to the northwest. If the PCs have not yet dealt with the denizen of area H13, they’ll hear the immense gnoll roaring and howling in that direction just before the Carrion Guards order their slaves here to attack the PCs.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 10
Armor: 2
Damage: Scimitar 4 damage; Longbow 4 damage + poison; stingchuck 4 damage + Level 3 nausea (1 damage vermin (no armor defense) and no action for 2 rounds)
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: A Carrion Guard always opens combat by hurling his stingchuck if he can, then follows up with shots from his longbow, moving between shots as necessary to maintain ranged advantage. When mounted on a hyaenodon, a Carrion Guard usually takes 1 or 2 rounds to attack at range before riding into melee to continue the fight with scimitar and to allow his mount a chance to bite at foes.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, mwk scimitar, mwk composite longbow with 20 arrows (poisoned with Huge scorpion venom; Level 4 Might Defense Check, 4/4 Might damage), stingchuck; cypher potion of healing (restore 1d6 pool points)
Morale: Carrion Guards are fiercely loyal to their king and fight to the death.
A stingchuck is a foul bag made of a human’s head with the brain removed and the skull heavily scored so that, when the stingchuck is thrown, the whole thing breaks and splits like a ripe melon upon striking a target. The gnolls fill stingchucks with dozens of stinging insects patiently (and often painfully) harvested from nests on the lower slopes of Pale Mountain.
A stingchuck is a grenade-like weapon. When it strikes a target, it douses that target with dozens of ravenous biting and stinging vermin, inflicting 1d6 points of damage and forcing a Level 3 Might Defense save to avoid being nauseated for 2 rounds. Each round a victim remains nauseated by a stingchuck, he takes an additional 1 point of damage from the biting vermin (bypasses armor). All creatures within 5 feet of a bursting stingchuck take 1 point of damage from the biting insects that pepper them, but need not make Might Defense check to avoid being nauseated.
Health: 6
Damage: 2 damage
Movement: Immediate
Treasure: One of the Carrion Guards carries a spear with a strange, hollow, metal head. This injection spear is one of Madfang’s (see page I7) more clever inventions.
While the device works fine on its own as a spear, the hollow head can be filled with a dose of poison or a potion.
If the spearhead’s reservoir is filled, it immediately empties into the bloodstream of any creature that is forcibly stabbed with the weapon, instantly subjecting it to the effects. Currently, the spear contains a dose of a potion of calm emotions. The Carrion Guards use injection spears so prepared to keep the unchosen under control—the hulking brutes are too large to carry while unconscious, but a dose of calm emotions makes them docile enough that they can be led back to their pen in area I8 below without much fuss. An injection spear is a nonmagical weapon worth 100 gp.
At one end of the room, a great stone sarcophagus engraved with arabesques and calligraphy sits, displayed upon a tiered dais. The top of the sarcophagus lies broken in several pieces on the floor.
Gnolls looted this tomb long ago. Nothing remains inside the sarcophagus but dust and a few crumbled bits of yellow bone.
The rough-hewn passage widens, emptying into a larger excavation site in which the upper corner of another, older structure protrudes from the surrounding earth about a yard above the floor. A sizable hole has been cracked out of its ceiling, from which protrudes a ladder of lashed sticks.
This area was the focus of Zayifid’s original attempt to locate the Pit of Screaming Ghosts and Shirak’s Tomb, a focus the janni abandoned exploration of once his exploratory shaft penetrated into a cavern ruled by salamanders deep below. The shaft itself is 200 feet deep and ends in a long tunnel that leads northward for a half mile before reaching a small complex of chambers ruled by a number of salamanders. If the PCs wish to explore these caves, consult the Set-Piece adventure that appears on page 64—once they discover these caves, they can use this route as a relatively secret way to come and go from the underground levels of the House of the Beast, for the northern salamander caves have their own exit onto the slopes of Pale Mountain.
The corridor slopes slightly upward, leading to a collapsed staircase buried beneath tons of rock and rubble.
As with area H6, clearing this collapsed staircase takes several hours of work (or magic, or a creature with a burrow speed). The stairs continue up for another 30 feet beyond the collapse, eventually emerging into area B above.
A battle has recently taken place here—the walls are spattered with fresh blood, and the bodies of what look like three men lie scattered in pieces on the floor.
Creatures: The gnolls released one of the unchosen into these passages, hoping to flush out and kill any of the slaves in the western warrens and trigger any traps the escaped slaves have put up. The furious beast encountered several escaped slaves here and killed them all, but for the past hour has refused to move on until it’s finished playing with and eating its kills. Rather than risk triggering its anger, the Carrion Guards who released it in the first place have opted instead to wait out the lull in area H9, hoping the unchosen continues deeper into the warren before they are forced to move in and pacify it for return to the lower temple.
Of course, if the PCs wander into the room, the immense hulk of a gnoll roars in delight and attacks them at once.
A hulking monstrosity lumbers forth, its canine jaws snapping ferociously. Its matted, speckled hide and hyena-like cackle hint at its animalistic nature, yet it walks like a man, even though its grotesque proportions seem wholly unnatural. A circular patch of thickened, gray scar tissue nestles in the filthy fur in the center of its forehead.
Health: 20
Armor: 3
Damage: Damage 6
Movement: Short
Modification: Initiative, Perception, Attack Level 5
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: Although relatively unintelligent, an unchosen can still use rudimentary tactics—they’re smarter than animals, if only barely. They combine ferocious pack-hunting techniques (in which multiple unchosen focus their attacks on one creature) with cruelty—they enjoy attacking helpless or smaller foes not because of the increased chance at success, but because they enjoy the sound of fear and panic such victims often reward them with. If an unchosen hits its foe, it generally uses a full Power Attack on all rounds to follow.
Bull Rush: Move a long range and hit everyone within 10 feet of the path. Anyone hit must make a Might Defense Check to avoid being knocked prone.
Power Attack: Hit everyone within immediate distance.
Equipment: None
Morale: Unchosen Gnolls will fight to the death.
The door leading into this tomb is locked tight with an ancient arcane lock (CL 12th). The gnolls have not yet managed to breach the door, the slaves having taken over the tunnels before they could investigate what lies beyond.
At one end of the room, a great stone sarcophagus covered with arabesques and calligraphy sits, displayed upon a tiered dais.
Opposite the sarcophagus stands an ancient shrine consisting of an upright wooden box, its faded colors also covered with ancient scribblings in black and gold. The shrine is flanked by short rows of badly tarnished candleholders holding naught but clumps of dried tallow.
Treasure: Inside the sarcophagus lies a mummified body wrapped in tar-soaked strips of muslin. The mummy is not undead—it is simply the long-dead body of an ancient priestess of Rovagug who still wears copper armbands worth 150 gp each and a ring of fire resistance cypher.
Ring of Fire Resistance (Level 6): Provides a chance for additional resistance to fire damaging effects for one day. (It does not provide resistance to blunt force, slashing, or piercing attacks.) If the level of the effect is of the cypher level or lower, the user gains an additional defense roll to avoid it. On a successful defense roll, treat the attack as if the user had succeeded on their regular defense roll. (If the user is an NPC, a PC attacking them with this kind of effect must succeed on two attack rolls to harm them.)
Thick mats of what must be dried roots or other vegetable matter lie heaped against the walls of this room. To the east, a wide tunnel descends at a gentle slope into the dark, while to the north, the outline of a stone door sits in the wall.
This room is part of an ancient escape route—one that the Carrion King knows about but hasn’t really bothered to maintain. The tunnel to the east leads down to the pit below the Maggot Throne in area I2.
The secret door in the north wall is obvious from this side, but from the passageway on the opposite wall, it’s a Level 7 Search check to notice the cleverly hidden door. The door itself hasn’t been opened in ages, and the first time it is opened, it requires a Level 5 Might check.
Creatures: A swarm of pale orange centipedes has taken up residence in this chamber, drawn perhaps by the proximity of their enormous, unnatural cousin that dwells down below in area I2. The centipedes furiously attack anything, gnoll or otherwise, that enters this room, excepting anything that obviously wears the unholy symbol of Rovagug.
A writhing mass of legs and poisonous pincers swarms across the ground in a deadly, undulating wave.
Environment: temperate or warm forest or underground
Health: 15
Damage: 5 damage + poison (3 Speed damage)
Movement: Short
Size: Swarm (Diminutive)
Modifications: Level 8 on Climb checks
Combat:
Swarm are immune to physical attacks.
A recently repaired hole in the eastern wall of this otherwise empty room stands partially blocked by three boulders cemented together with dried clay.
Trap: The ex-slaves set a trap that targets creatures entering this room from the east. The boulders block only part of the entrance from the tunnel into this room; it’s easy enough for anyone to clamber over the 2-foot-high rocks. Of course, anyone who attempts to do so (or who tries to move the boulders or chip away at the mud) strikes a hidden trip line that releases a sharpened iron gate that hangs near the ceiling above. This sharpened gate swings down like a primitive guillotine, striking everyone in its path. The trap is plainly obvious to anyone who approaches from the west.
Type mechanical; Search Level 4; Disable Device Level 5
Effects
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect sharpened iron gate (7 damage); multiple targets (all creatures in entrance, plus all adjacent creatures in hallway beyond)
Pale blue ceramic censers dangle from copper chains mounted into the ceiling along the edges of this room, filling the chamber with a faint, flickering light. To the west, a mound of rocks has been stacked to form a crude throne. A collection of mismatched boxes and clay urns lines the northern wall, while to the south, numerous rocks have been stacked in front of a pair of doors.
Creatures: This room was once used as a secret meeting chamber for high priests, but now serves as the lair of a cruel escaped slave named Lazrul. Son of a rapacious ogre and an unlucky traveler, Lazrul is a hulking, deformed hybrid known as an ogrekin, half ogre and half human.
Sold into slavery as a child, Lazrul has known nothing else for all his years, but when his master was murdered by a band of gnolls on a caravan trail, he was captured and brought to the House of the Beast.
Over the course of the next few months, Lazrul learned that not all masters are equal, and the cruelties he’s endured at gnoll hands far outshine those he thought were cruel before. Lazrul’s patience finally broke several days ago, and in a blind rage he single-handedly killed two Carrion Guards. Shocked that the killing was so easy, Lazrul had an epiphany—he was the strong one, not the gnolls.
Yet he was not foolish. His act of murder also freed over a dozen other slaves, all of whom were being led upstairs on what would doubtless have been a suicide run against the troglodytes to the west. Of these, five broke for the surface and now hide out in area A above. The other slaves, too cowardly to brave the surface, followed Lazrul and fled into the tunnels they’d helped dig, eventually ending up here. Lazrul, giddy with delight at being his own master and knowing little more than slave hierarchy, has turned on his fellow escapees, making them his own slaves. A few tried to resist, and he punished them with his club. Others have fallen to the gnoll attacks (such as the three who were recently slain by the unchosen in area H13). The remaining four slaves are as terrified of their new ogrekin master as they were of the gnolls—to them, nothing has changed, save that now they don’t have to dig as much.
Lazrul is cruel and sadistic, and too stupid to realize that the PCs can help him. He orders his slaves to kill the PCs when they enter the room—he remains seated on his homemade throne, chewing thoughtfully on a raw lizard, the latest feast provided him by his scavenging slaves. Only if his slaves fall or if he’s attacked directly does he stand up with his oversized club (an uprooted sapling), roar, and enter the attack himself.
Health: 20
Armor: 4
Damage: 6 damage
Movement: Immediate
Size: Medium
Skills: Attacking and intimidating is Level 4
Language: Common
Combat: During Combat Lazrul is an uncreative combatant—he attacks the largest foe, focusing all his anger on that one target. Each round he hits a target, he grows progressively wilder with his swings, increasing his Power Attack by 1 point each round.
Power Attack: Each round he hits his target his damage increases by 1 damage. Once he misses the next time he hits it goes down to his base damage value.
Morale: Lazrul fights to the death.
Equipment: studded leather armor, Large greatclub
Health: 6
Damage: 2 damage
Movement: Immediate
During Combat The slaves follow Lazrul’s orders at the start of combat, but as soon as Lazrul is damaged, the slaves rebel and join the PCs, attacking the ogre instead.
Morale As long as Lazrul isn’t wounded, the slaves fight to the death. Once the slaves turn against him, though, they shriek in fear and flee if wounded, running into the warrens to hide (likely retreating to the wells in area H11).
Treasure: Most of the ceramic censers are cracked, half-shattered, or otherwise damaged, but one remains untouched. It is worth 500 gp to the proper collector.
The walls of this twenty-foot-wide hall are completely obscured by thick sheets of webbing, transforming it into a cloying, musty tube where sounds are eerily muffled. To the south, the web tube cinches down to a ten-foot-wide tunnel.
Here and there, large shapes encased in thick webs hang from the walls.
The northern doors are covered with webs on this side, and blocked by rubble on the other—if one side is cleared, the doors can be opened with a Level 6 Might check (either pushing against the rubble or pulling free from the webbing).
Creature: An enormous funnel-web spider has converted this hallway into its lair. During the day, the creature lurks in here, while at night it clambers up to hunt the surrounding region. The sticky webbing on the floor is treated as difficult terrain for creatures other than spiders.
If the spider is present, it immediately moves to defend its lair, fighting to the death.
Motive: Hungers for food
Environment: Anywhere a giant spider can lurk, including jungles, sewers, and caves.
Health: 18
Armor: 4 (Level 4 Speed Defense)
Damage: 6 damage + poison
Movement: Long
Size: Huge
Modification: Climb as level 8. Perception and stealth as level 6.
Combat: A giant spider entangles its foes before it feeds on them, preferably from ambush. It can shoot a Level 5 web that covers a short area within long range. Foes traveling through it, if not entangled counts as difficult terrain. When it succeeds, the bite injects a poison that on a failed Might defense roll it gives a disadvantage to the target's Speed and might checks by a step and does 4 point of speed and might damage. If bit and poisoned again the target is paralyze. Once this happens the spider can quickly cocoon the target.
Morale: The giant funnel-web spiders fight to the death.
Treasure: Most of the web-wrapped meals are animals, but one of them near the northern end of the hall is a desiccated human bandit still wearing his +1 chain shirt and an amulet of Might+2.
These web-choked stairs wind up to the westernmost minaret in area D. Several wide windows up there allow access to the outside. The ground here is difficult terrain, and the walls are a nasty mix of webs and spider hair from the creature’s nightly passage through the stairs to and from its lair. About 10 feet down, the stairs seem to end in a wall of dense webbing. If it is burned away or hacked apart (hp 15, Level 5 Armor 2) or torn open (Might Level 5), the stairs are revealed to continue down to areas I4.
The realm of the Carrion King and the core of his power is this deep level, once the main temple of the House of the Beast and where Jhavhul met with his petitioners and granted their wishes. The air in the Lower Temple is almost unbearably putrid due to the carrion pit in area I2. Upon first visiting the Lower Temple, each character must make a Level 3 Fortitude save to avoid being nauseated for 1d10 rounds and then sickened for 2d4 hours. A successful save negates both effects—characters need make new saves only if they leave the Lower Temple for more than a day before returning. The inhabitants of the House of the Beast are accustomed to the reek and need not make these saving throws.
The air in this tremendous hall is thick and hot, clotted with a repugnant charnel stench. A foul plaster of clay, dung, and blood smears the walls, stamped with repeated patterns of paw-prints, crude symbols, and skulls. A row of thick stone columns divides the large room from an equally large adjacent chamber. Double doors lead east, and a curved staircase along the southern end of the room leads up.
The Hall of Whispers has long served as the primary temple of the House of the Beast. It was here that Jhavhul appeared before his supplicants and granted wishes (two for him, one for the supplicant). And it is here that Ghartok the Carrion King holds court. The immense gnoll spends much of his time seated to the north on the Maggot Throne (area I2), but sometimes relocates to this large chamber, especially on the sacred days and nights of carrion feasts, when the worshipers of Rovagug gather here to celebrate in violent, gluttonous orgies.
Creatures: This adventure assumes that when the PCs first reach the Hall of Whispers, no major ceremonies are taking place. In this case, the hall is nearly empty, guarded by a group of six gnolls led by a pair of Carrion Initiates, gnoll clerics who watch over the northern arcade of pillars and prevent the riff-raff from pestering the Carrion King.
They immediately cry out in alarm if they see intruders here or in area I2 to the north. If he still lives, the Carrion King comes to join any battle that begins here, arriving in 1d4+1 rounds with a delighted roar.
If you want to have the PCs encounter a larger force here, you can add in additional gnolls and Carrion Initiates and even a few Carrion Guards to make the encounter as difficult as you wish. Certainly, the sounds and sights of a mass feast of carrion here should be enough to make even the bravest parties hesitate before entering.
Health: 11
Armor: 3
Damage: 6 damage + 2 negative energy damage
Movement: Short
Size: Medium
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: Initiates attack with their axes as they seek out badly wounded foes with deathwatch. Opponents that fall close to death are struck with inflict light wounds spells.
Equipment: splint mail, greataxe; 2 cyphers
Morale: Initiates fight to the death.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 10
Armor: 2
Damage: Scimitar 4 damage; Longbow 4 damage + poison; stingchuck 4 damage + Level 3 nausea (1 damage vermin (no armor defense) and no action for 2 rounds)
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: A Carrion Guard always opens combat by hurling his stingchuck if he can, then follows up with shots from his longbow, moving between shots as necessary to maintain ranged advantage. When mounted on a hyaenodon, a Carrion Guard usually takes 1 or 2 rounds to attack at range before riding into melee to continue the fight with scimitar and to allow his mount a chance to bite at foes.
The guards attack the nearest opponents, fighting to move them toward the southern portion of the chamber, away from the Maggot Throne.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, mwk scimitar, mwk composite longbow with 20 arrows (poisoned with Huge scorpion venom; Level 4 Might Defense Check, 4/4 Might damage), stingchuck; cypher potion of healing (restore 1d6 pool points)
Morale: Carrion Guards are fiercely loyal to their king and fight to the death.
A gargantuan but shallow pit filled with broken, rotting carcasses crawling with larvae and vermin dominates this area, leaving a ten-foot-wide walkway to the east and west. The bodies in the pit, mostly the remains of goats, cattle, and other animals, turn the pit into a roughly bowl-shaped depression, ten feet deep in the middle and nearly even with the floor along the edge. A twenty-foot-wide gap in the pit wall to the east opens into a carcass-lined tunnel.
To the south, the ledge widens into a balcony overlooking the pit, while to the north the room curves inward around a concave ledge that supports a gigantic framework of bone and sinew in the shape of a nine-legged spider with a gaping maw. Much of its surface is stretched with the dried skins of dozens of different creatures.
Extending from the spider’s maw is a stone walkway that connects to the top of a twenty-foot-wide pillar rising from the center of the pit.
Atop this pillar sits a tremendous and gory throne made of shattered bodies, stitched together with rope and lengths of bent metal to form a throne of bones and maggot-writhing carrion.
The dead animals in the pit are augmented here and there by the tribe’s own dead and a few sacrifices of slaves and troglodytes. The pit is 5 feet deep, but the mass of bodies within turn it into a bowl-shaped depression. It is from this pit that the lower temple’s hideous reek comes. A Medium or smaller character who wishes to move among the tangled reeking bodies can do so by climbing over the bodies—the surface is too uneven to walk over. Large or larger creatures can move through the pit as if it were difficult terrain if they wish. A character who enters the pit must make a Level 4 Might saving throw to avoid becoming nauseated for 1d10 rounds and then sickened for 2d4 hours, even if they’re already accustomed to the lower temple’s foul air.
A forgotten opening in the western wall of the pit is almost completely buried in carrion. A Level 6 Search check notes a slight gap between top of the arch and its festering contents. A grisly 2d6 rounds of work is enough to pull aside enough bodies to expose the tunnel entrance—it leads to area H15.
The Maggot Throne itself is the Carrion King’s favored haunt, and it also serves as a hidden entrance into the lower chambers of the House of the Beast. A Level 5 Search check of the Maggot Throne reveals a trigger at its base that, when pulled clockwise halfway around the throne’s base as a standard action, causes the throne itself to slide back along the stone bridge to the north and exposes a flight of spiral stairs that winds down the inside of the pillar below to area J1.
Creatures: This chamber is the favored haunt of the Carrion King himself—a monstrous brute of a gnoll descended from a line of ancient priestkings.
Ghartok (a name few in the tribe know—most know him only as the Carrion King) is now something more than gnoll. When he and his fellow tribesmen first came to the House of the Beast, they fought several of the vermin denizens that had taken up residence in the ruins. With each chamber searched, Ghartok grew more and more impressed with what he found, and quickly realized that here was a god he could respect. Everything he had found wanting in Lamashtu was present in force with Rovagug.
When he and his minions finally reached this room and were confronted by an immense beast of a hundred legs, Ghartok stood enraptured by the sight as the enormous creature slew and consumed every one of his followers.
When Ghartok was all that remained, he fell to his knees before the beast, and a voice exploded in his head. He knelt before one of the many chosen of Rovagug, a stegocentipede named Thkot Tal who possessed an unnatural and unholy intelligence. Not quite an avatar of the Rough Beast, Thkot Tal told Ghartok it had been waiting for one worthy to waken the House of the Beast anew. With lightning speed, the creature struck, lancing Ghartok square in the forehead with its poisonous sting.
Ghartok died there, yet he was also reborn. When his eyes opened again, he beheld his new body—powerful, muscular, and half again the size of the largest gnoll he’d ever seen. And as he rubbed at a strange ache between his eyes, he could feel the scabrous welt the sting had left behind. The unholy intelligence within Thkot Tal had passed to him, leaving the stegocentipede a mindless but nevertheless loyal minion in the pit below. Atop a throne of carrion, Ghartok found a powerful magic greataxe named Goreshred, one built especially for the slaughter of humanity. Ghartok had become the first of a new race of gnolls—the unchosen. And with this transformation, armed with Goreshred, he emerged from the House of the Beast as the Carrion King.
On one level, the climax of this adventure is the battle against the Carrion King. Yet that battle is unlikely to occur at the end of the adventure, since the true goal of “House of the Beast” isn’t just to kill Ghartok, but to recover the Scroll of Kakishon. When the PCs encounter the Carrion King, play up the battle for all it’s worth. You can even adjust his morale and let him escape to recover and rebuild his allies, turning the confrontation into a multi-encounter battle that moves throughout the House of the Beast.
But once the Carrion King is dead, things in the House of the Beast change. Deprived of a leader, the gnolls start to bicker and fight each other. For a few days after the Carrion King’s death, things are chaotic in the House of the Beast—gnolls encountered are as interested in fighting each other as they are the PCs, with the named NPCs retreating to their lairs to ride out the storm. This condition lasts for 1d4 days, after which the majority of the gnolls, Carrion Guards, and Carrion Initiates are dead or gone. The House of the Beast becomes much easier and safer to explore as a result—although the lower two levels (areas J and K) are relatively unchanged by the development.
On the other hand, if Zayifid still lives after the Carrion King is slain, he swiftly takes up control of the tribe, reducing the period of infighting to a mere 2d6 hours, after which the House of the Beast stabilizes. Yet now, rather than using the gnolls to further his own decadence, the new king puts the gnolls to work at an exhaustive search of the complex. They find the hidden entrance to the Stone Speakers under the Maggot Throne in a day, and Zayifid immediately begins sending wave after wave of gnolls down into the lower dungeons to test for traps and guardians. In this case, the adventure turns into a race, as the PCs must recover the Scroll of Kakishon before Zayifid. Alternatively, Zayifid could even recruit the PCs to take on this exploratory role. More details on how to handle this development appear on page 44.
The Carrion King spends the majority of his time with his wives in area I4, but once the alarm spreads news of intruders, he demands his warriors capture them and bring them before him at the Maggot Throne. Next, he gleefully heads to his throne room and waits in anticipation of the opportunity to watch his followers throw them into the Carrion Pit as sacrifices to Thkot Tal. Any PCs captured during this adventure suffer this fate—stripped of armor and weapons, they are cast into the pit and quickly attract the attention of the beast that lairs in area I3.
If the PCs reach this far without raising alarms, they find this room empty—the Carrion King is still in area I4 with his wives. If Ghartok waits for them here, though, the PCs find him arrogantly slumped upon his throne with his favorite advisor “Rokova” at his side. Rokova, in fact, is the janni Zayifid, and remains silent during the scene to follow.
The Carrion King berates the PCs for being foolish enough to try to break into his temple, shrugging off any attacks as if they were trivial (regardless of whether or not they actually hurt him—after all, the Carrion King must maintain his appearance). Instead, he commands the PCs to save him the effort and sacrifice themselves to Rovagug by casting aside their weapons and armor and flinging themselves into the pit. Only if they refuse does Ghartok rise from his throne to do the job himself. In the battle to follow, “Rokova” steps back into the shadows to hide, something that Ghartok assumes indicates a setup for a death attack against the PCs, so he thinks nothing of it. In fact, Zayifid is biding his time; if the PCs seem to get the upper hand over Ghartok, he’ll step in and aid them in destroying the Carrion King. If this occurs, see page 44 for the next moves “Rokova” makes.
Health: 30
Armor: 4
Damage: Greataxe 8 damage, Bite 5 damage
Movement: Long
Modification: Intellect, Initiative, Perception, Attack Level 6, Attack vs. Humans Level 7
Languages: Common, Gnoll
Combat: A loyal creature to the Rough Beast, he hates the priesthood of Sarenrae with a passion and attacks obvious clerics and paladins in her service first. He saves his roaring fury to use if he gets surrounded by foes, and his loathsome strike for any foe that strikes him as particularly clean and dainty, taking great glee in “messing up the pretty faces of the world.”
Bull Rush: Move a long range and hit everyone within 10 feet of the path. Anyone hit must make a Might Defense Check to avoid being knocked prone.
Power Attack: Hit everyone within immediate distance.
Loathsome Strike: the Carrion King gets an advantage to his attack roll—on a successful hit, in lieu of normal damage, he deals 5 points of Intellect damage.
Roaring Fury: The Carrion King may as part of a regular attack emit fierce roar that forces all living opponents within 30 feet to make a Level 3 Intellect save or become panicked.
Equipment: +1 breastplate (Medium Armor 3 Armor), Goreshred (+1 human bane greataxe; Heavy Weapon 7 damage with asset to hit humans), amulet of health +2 (+2 to Might Pool), ring of protection +1 (1 Armor).
Morale: The Carrion King is arrogant—he cannot conceive of losing a battle once it is joined, and fights to the death as a result.
This janni takes many forms, ranging from a traveling priest to a humble scholar to a gnoll acolyte.
Health: 30
Armor: 3
Level 6 Speed Defense
Fire Armor 2
Damage: 2 Scimitar attacks: 5 (Scimitar)/7 vs. Fire Creatures
Movement: Short, Short (flying)
Skills: Level 6 on Flying, Perception, Traps; Level 7 Bluff, Disguise, Sneak
Languages: Celestial, Common, Terran; telepathy 100 ft., speak with animals
Combat: If confronted in this initial encounter, Zayifid does not attempt to fight—he simply delivers his message as detailed above and then attempts to flee to the House of the Beast. If the PCs somehow manage to corner him, he fights back as best he can but tries to leave the PCs alive, fighting only so long as it takes to escape—at this point, dead PCs are of no use to him.
Combat Expertise: Increase his Defense level by 1, decrease his scimitar attack to 1 per round.
Sneak Attack: Add 3 to damage if he catches this target by surprise.
Invisibility (self only)
Plane shift (elemental plane, astral plane, or material plane)
Change size: Can increase (enlarge) or decrease (reduce) the size of a target creature within short range for 1 minute.
Enlarge: +4 points to Might Pool, +1 Armor, +2 to your Might Edge, -1 disadv. step to Speed Defense and stealth checks, practiced using natural attack as heavy weapons.
Reduce: +4 points to Speed Pool, +2 Speed Edge, +1 adv. step to Speed defense and stealth step, -1 disadv. step to might and intimidation checks, -2 to damage (to a minimum of 1 ).
Create food and water
Ethereal Jaunt (for 1 hour)
Morale: Jann enjoy their privacy, preferring the solitude of the deep desert and isolated oases. They are usually suspicious of humans, but are often willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Jann have a strong cultural tradition of hospitality, and will never turn away someone in need of food, water, or shelter, though they might expect payment in the form of a favor at some later date.
Among the other genie races, jann generally have good relations with both djinn and shaitans. While not actively enemies, jann dislike the proud and aloof marids. Jann have a distinct aversion to the efreet, who often try to enslave them or conscript them into their armies.
Combat Gear Elven chainmail (Medium armor, encumbers as no armor), Zephyr (artifact), 4 daggers;
Zephyr
Level: 10
Form: A scimitar with distinctive patterns swirling throughout the blue-white frosted blade.
Effect: When attacking a fire outsider the tasked is eased by two steps. When striking the damage is does is cold slashing damage.
The wielder can use an action to activate its frozen magic for one minute. During that time, if the weapon scores a hit, it inflicts normal damage, plus 3 additional points of speed cold damage.
Depletion: 1 in 1d100
Other Gear hat of disguise cypher
The floor of this foul-smelling cave is carpeted with an uneven layer of trampled carcasses and flesh and fur and bones.
Creature: This cavern is the lair of an immense beast—an armor-plated stegocentipede known as Thkot Tal (The Little God) to the gnolls. Its duty as the mouth of Rovagug completed with the transformation of Ghartok into the Carrion King, the creature is now content to feed on the plentiful sacrifices and carrion the gnolls provide it. The beast is a gigantic, 30-foot-long centipede covered with chitinous plates of hardened bone that run along its back in double rows. Its rear portion ends in a long, scorpionlike stinger.
Health: 40
Armor: 4 (Level 4 Speed Defense)
Damage: 2 attacks: 8 bite/tail damage + poison
Movement: Long
Size: Gargantuan; attack range is short range
Modification: Intellect Defense as level 8
Combat: Although mindless, Thkot Tal does recognize gnolls as allies and won’t attack them—characters disguised as gnolls can move among the immense many-legged vermin safely as long as they don’t attack it. All other creatures are food, and it attacks the closest such target each round.
Poison: Injury (bite or tail)—Fortitude Level 6; initial and secondary 4 Speed damage.
Spines: A stegocentipede raises its dorsal spine plates during combat and moves rapidly back and forth. Creatures adjacent to a stegocentipede must succeed on a Level 5 Speed save each round or take 6 damage from the spine-plates each time they attack whether the attack is successful or not.
Morale: Thkot Tal fights to the death.
Ancient plaster frescos of serpentine beasts line the walls. An assortment of weapons hangs from spikes pounded into the wall, including a chipped iron greataxe, a blood-red leather whip, bladed leather gauntlets, and an assortment of battleaxes and throwing cleavers. Along the north wall, huge semi-circular columns, twenty feet across, intrude into the room, creating wide alcoves, while in the middle of the room rests a pile of mildewed bearskins. A set of battered double doors stands ajar to the west.
A door in the central column allows access to the middle minaret (leading up to area D), while the door to the northwest is jammed shut. It’s a Level 6 Might check to open it; beyond is a staircase that leads up to area H19 before becoming clogged with webs.
This room is where the Carrion King sleeps, eats, and cavorts with his wives. If he hasn’t already been encountered in area I2, he can be caught here with 1d4 of the gnolls from area I5.
Treasure: While most of the weapons on the wall are mundane or badly damaged, the blood-red whip is actually a crimson whip of soulflaying (artifact).
CRIMSON WHIP OF SOULFLAYING
Level: 1d6 + 1
Form: A finely made whip made out of a hardened yet flexible dark red material engraved with glowing runes denoting soulflaying.
Effect: This weapon functions as a whip. The wielder can use an action to activate its soulflaying magic for one minute. During that time, if the weapon scores a hit, it inflicts normal damage, plus 3 additional points of intellect damage on all creatures that have souls (not constructs, undead, or the like).
Depletion: 1 in 1d100
This room is garishly decorated with weathered bits of junk, faded threadbare tapestries, and broken mosaics—all once rich and lavish items that time has robbed of beauty and value.
Now dark stains smear the walls and waste and excrement litter the corners. A pile of rubble and broken furniture seals an archway in the southern wall. Along the northern wall, a fountain carved with intricate geometric patterns trickles a hint of brown, dirty water.
Creatures: Lounging about in various drunken and drugged states are the Carrion King’s wives, a ragged collection of gnoll bitches who fancy themselves the luckiest in the tribe, yet who are universally battered and jittery. When not attending to the Carrion King, these skittish gnolls pass their time in a haze, puffing from exotically shaped hookahs or sipping bitter wine from filthy brass cups.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 6
Armor: 1
Damage: club 4 damage + bite 2 damage
Movement: Immediate
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: Despite their sorry shape, the gnoll wives are fiercely loyal to the Carrion King, and anyone who enters this room finds the five gnolls to be a shrieking frenzy of howls and improvised weapons (thrown hookahs, rocks, and jagged clubs from broken furniture). In their drug-addled state, the gnoll wives are effectively sickened.
Morale: The gnoll wives fight to the death.
Treasure: There are five hookahs in all, each worth 50 gp. Other valuables in the room include a beautifully crafted book of erotic poetry worth 135 gp inside of a handy haversack, a small fancy box carved from alabaster and inset with colorful rock crystal worth 50 gp, and a rock crystal urn decorated with a detailed etching of a flock of doves worth 265 gp.
Finally there are six long-stem gallon bottles of bitter wine, their bases wound with a hempen baskets, worth 5 gp each.
An extended hall stretches between various chambers and arches. In the center of the hall a hollow diamond-shaped column decorated with elaborate tile mosaics frames a spiral staircase. Strewn about the dusty floor lie a dozen or so humanoid bones, cracked and gnawed with teeth marks.
The stairs lead up to area H3.
Six granite columns, badly chipped and damaged, encircle a large room swept clean of debris and dust. Metal rungs riveted into the columns suspend a humanoid-shaped, cage-like structure from fitted iron chains. Before the cage, a complex device set in a weighted metal base extends a swiveling, jointed appendage of unfinished iron inscribed with jagged runes. Mounted to the end of the appendage is a burnished steel facemask with clamps and bands that appear as if they were meant to be strapped over someone’s head. Centered in the forehead of the mask, a half-inch-wide drill bit faces inward toward what would be the wearer’s face. The bladed bit connects to gears and spindles that lead to a crank halfway down the metal arm.
To the east, a large stone door sealed with chains and iron bars stands in the wall. A smaller door with no obvious lock stands to the southwest.
When the Carrion King’s tribe first moved into the House of the Beast, one of Ghartok’s greatest hopes was to discover a method to duplicate his transformation, to change his tribe of gnolls into a tribe of towering champions of Rovagug. After several false starts with the aid of gnoll adepts and wizards (all of whom paid for their failure by becoming the Carrion King’s dinner), Ghartok turned to other sources. He sent out word to the tribes of Pale Mountain that any tribe who could capture a talented alchemist and miracle-worker would be greatly rewarded—the result of this challenge was delivered to the House of the Beast a month later in the form of a madman named Falgrass Numrat, a brilliant but deranged ex-priest of Lamashtu known to the gnolls today as Madfang.
The large door to the east is quite secure—a Level 7 Might check is required to bash down the reinforced stone. There are six locks on the door, each requiring a Level 6 Open Lock check to pick. A Level 7 Search check of the door reveals a hidden switch, however, that if pulled, unlocks all six locks at once and causes the door to swing open.
The hideous mechanical apparatus and cage is the end result of Madfang’s work—a trepanning machine employed as part of the Ascension Ceremonies. The candidate is locked into the cage and fitted with the mask, and once secured, the drill is used to remove a small circular chunk of bone from the center of the candidate’s skull. The depth of the drill is currently set to the appropriate measurement for a gnoll ( just slightly thicker than a human’s), but it can be adjusted with the tiny twist knobs near the bit. One can also change the size or type of bit, if necessary. Madfang keeps a set of alternate drill bits in his private chambers. A creature subjected to this device takes 5 points of Might damage and 5 points of Intellect drain—if this drain reduces the victim’s Intelligence to 0, he is killed by the procedure. Only when the procedure is accompanied by the prayers and administration of unholy water and foul concoctions (kept in area I9), and only when the victim is a gnoll, is there a chance of transformation into one of the unchosen.
Creature: The king’s most disturbing ally, the mad priest–surgeon Madfang the Holy Ascensioner, claims this section of the lower temple. Madfang cares little for alarms—he’ll be encountered here no matter what condition the temple alert is at. He spends most of his waking hours tinkering with his cruel device here or in area I9 brewing new concoctions, constantly seeking ways to make the process more painful and more efficient in his search to develop just the right procedure to create unchosen that retain their intellect in the way the Carrion King has. To date, he’s been singularly unsuccessful—the results of his experiments are kept in area I8 beyond the locked door. There’s an equal chance that Madfang is encountered here or in area I9; if he’s in area I9, the door to that room from this one is open so he can hear if anything requires his attention in this room.
Grotesque beyond reproach, Madfang is a wiry man with a slight stoop and bald pate. He dresses in a thick, leather work-smock, heavy gloves, and covers the lower half of his face with a leather doctor’s mask. He also carries a tool belt filled with chisels, scalpels, and other sharp quasi-surgical implements, which he wears draped over his shoulder like a bandoleer. Born both poor and ugly, his drunken mother lost him in a Solku bazaar when he was about 5 or 6 years old. He spent the next few years wandering the streets and survived by following about the local stray dogs, earning their trust by stealing food for them and huddling up with them for warmth during the colder months. Eventually the beastboy caught the attention of a haggish old woman named Mariggah. As it turned out, Mariggah was secretly a priestess of Lamashtu and thought the beast-boy might be an omen. She taught him her ways and beliefs, and he became rudimentary versed as a cleric, and eventually murdered her for her troubles and took on her mantle.
When the Carrion King ordered his tribes to seek out an alchemist, it took only a month for them to find and capture Madfang. Presented to the Carrion King, the spineless Falgrass converted instantly, promising Ghartok great power in exchange for his life. Using the secrets of Lamashtu’s sacred trepanation ritual of Growing the Third Eye and his curious knowledge of forbidden alchemy, he immediately began developing a technique to duplicate Ghartok’s own transformation.
These days, Falgrass has embraced his new name, and even claims to be half-gnoll. Despite his knowledge of Lamashtu’s mysteries, Falgrass is barely a priest and even less of a surgeon, yet in his madness he can still be extremely dangerous.
Madfang is a wiry man with a slight stoop and bald pate. He dresses in a thick, leather work-smock, heavy gloves, and covers the lower half of his face with a leather doctor’s mask. He also carries a tool belt filled with chisels, scalpels, and other sharp quasi-surgical implements, which he wears draped over his shoulder like a bandoleer.
Health: 16
Armor: 2
Damage: 3
Movement: Immediate
Skills: Level 5 alchemy, Initiative, Heal
Language: Common, Gnoll
Combat: Desperate to defend his works, Madfang howls at opponents and hurls potions in his bandoleer and then lashes at them with his dagger if they within melee range.
Potions:
Madness - Affects anyone within immediate distance that fail a Level 5 Intellect Defense save. Anyone smelling the fumes rages and they gain +8 to their Might Pool, +1 to their Might Edge, +2 to their Speed Pool, and +1 to their Speed Edge. While berserk, they attack every living creature within short range, starting with the closest. If no living creature is within short range, they move to seek out potential victims. They can save each round for ten minutes.
Burning Fumes - Affects anyone within immediate distance that fail a Level 5 Might Defense check. Cloud remains their for 5 rounds. When they breathe the fumes in their lungs burn for 5 Might damage and have a disadvantage each round they are in the cloud.
Morale: Craven as ever, Madfang immediately moves to the door to area I8 as soon as he is wounded and attempts to pull the release. He hopes to escape to area I2 in the resulting chaos as the unchosen burst out of the area beyond.
Equipment: Leather armor, masterwork dagger, masterwork surgical tools, mother's milk cypher
Mother's Milk (Level 5): After one hour, the sweat of the user produces 1d6 doses of a valuable liquid (these doses are not considered cyphers). They must be used within one week.
Roll a d100 to determine the effect.
01–04 Euphoric for 1d6 hours
05–08 Hallucinogenic for 1d6 hours
09–12 Stimulant for 1d6 hours
13–16 Depressant for 1d6 hours
17–20 Nutrient supplement
21–25 Antivenom
26–30 Cures disease
31–35 See in the dark for one hour
36–45 Restores a number of Might Pool points equal to cypher level
46–55 Restores a number of Speed Pool points equal to cypher level
56–65 Restores a number of Intellect Pool points equal to cypher level
66–75 Increases Might Edge by 1 for one hour
76–85 Increases Speed Edge by 1 for one hour
86–95 Increases Intellect Edge by 1 for one hour
96–00 Restores all Pools to full
Jagged chunks of stonework and rotten carcasses smeared with putrid slime and excrement create a vile terrain and a pungent stench in this cavernous but otherwise empty chamber. A large hole in the ceiling thirty feet above opens into what appears to be another chamber.
The hole in the ceiling leads to area H2.
Creatures: Gnolls who undergo the transformation ritual and survive become hulking monstrosities—the unchosen. While the gnolls value these creatures as shock troopers, they’re difficult to control. They use injection spears filled with potions of calm emotions to control the unchosen when they need them, but for the most part leave the violent creatures locked up in the dark in this room, where they pass the time fighting, sleeping, and tormenting each other. There are currently five unchosen kept in here—each is somewhat wounded from fighting (hence the slightly lower EL than normal listed above), but they race to attack any non-unchosen they see (gnolls included, although they always attack gnolls last if given a choice) if their chamber is opened.
A hulking monstrosity lumbers forth, its canine jaws snapping ferociously. Its matted, speckled hide and hyena-like cackle hint at its animalistic nature, yet it walks like a man, even though its grotesque proportions seem wholly unnatural. A circular patch of thickened, gray scar tissue nestles in the filthy fur in the center of its forehead.
Health: 15
Armor: 3
Damage: Damage 6
Movement: Short
Modification: Initiative, Perception, Attack Level 5
Languages: Common, Gnoll
Combat: Although relatively unintelligent, an unchosen can still use rudimentary tactics—they’re smarter than animals, if only barely. They combine ferocious pack-hunting techniques (in which multiple unchosen focus their attacks on one creature) with cruelty—they enjoy attacking helpless or smaller foes not because of the increased chance at success, but because they enjoy the sound of fear and panic such victims often reward them with. If an unchosen hits its foe, it generally uses a full Power Attack on all rounds to follow.
Bull Rush: Move a long range and hit everyone within 10 feet of the path. Anyone hit must make a Might Defense Check to avoid being knocked prone.
Power Attack: Hit everyone within immediate distance.
Equipment: None
Morale: Unchosen Gnolls will fight to the death.
The walls of this long vault are lined wth wide alcoves. In several are stored numerous crates, barrels, and containers. At the western end, three alcoves contain workbenches and tables strewn with complex alchemical equipment, while a fourth at this end contains a crude cot, several ratty blankets, and a chest. At the far west end of the room is an immense mound of bones and empty carapaces from enormous insects and spiders.
This was once a series of sleeping cells for priests, but the Carrion King has given the entire vault over to Madfang to use as he will.
The vault is spacious, far larger than the lunatic needs to work his magic, and he doesn’t use the eastern portion of the chamber at all.
Treasure: Two of the three alcoves containing alchemical equipment are nothing special, but the third contains a fully functional alchemist’s lab. Under a table in this third alcove lie six injection spears (see page 30), and a small leather satchel containing nine potions of calm emotions.
The chest in Madfang’s sleeping alcove is unlocked and holds a collection of anatomy scrolls containing detailed diagrams of a brain pictured in quarters, the inside of an eye, a bisected heart, and a bisected kidney, all labeled in Qadiran. The entire collection is worth 250 gp. Under these papers lie a score of crystal vials containing various astringents and antiseptics. They can be used to aid Heal checks, each providing an asset bonus to a single treatment provided to a single individual. The chest also contains a 3 cyphers.
Potion of Electrical Burst (Level 3): For the next day, each time the user strikes a solid creature or object, the attack generates a burst of electricity, inflicting 1 additional point of damage (2 points if the cypher is level 4 or higher, 3 points if the cypher is level 6 or higher).
Cursed Dart (Level 7): The cypher can be activated when given to an individual who doesn’t realize its significance. The next time the victim attempts an important task when the cypher is in their possession, the task is hindered by three steps.
Heatsheen (Level 6): For the next day, each time the user strikes a solid creature or object with the weapon coated with the oil, the attack generates a burst of heat that inflicts 2 additional points of damage.
An arch opens into a geometric maze of hand-carved passages. Ancient writing covers the extent of the tunnels from floor to ceiling for as far as the eye can see.
A Level 5 Decipher Script check reveals the writing as an ancient form of Qadiran, though reading the hallways with any accuracy would require extensive time and study.
Written in chronological order, these hallways create a walking pathway of unholy scripture. Spanning centuries, the language evolves slowly, marking the passage of time.
These halls have been the most helpful to Zayifid in his search for the hiding place of the Scroll of Kakishon, although the scripture carved on these walls is so dense and prolific it’s been slow going making any sense of the carvings. He has, nevertheless, uncovered a series of cryptic icons that concern a mysterious part of the temple called the Pit of Screaming Ghosts. Its location remains undiscovered by Zayifid, though evidence within the runes suggests it is for good reason. In ancient times, the Pit was used to imprison the damnable souls of wicked genies for all eternity.
Creature: If the PCs haven’t yet caused a serious disturbance, then Zayifid is to be found here studying the extensive knowledge hidden in the walls, where he’s drawn closer than ever to discovering the true entrance to the Pit of Screaming Ghosts—he no longer suspects that the entrance is via the wells in area W12, but rather that there is a hidden passageway somewhere in area I2 or I3.
As long as the Carrion King remains in control, though, he doesn’t want to risk letting the powerful unchosen know what he’s up to—nor does he want to risk an open revolt. Zayifid’s hope is that the PCs will slay Ghartok, at which point he intends to rally the remaining gnolls to his cause, capture the PCs, and use them to explore the chambers he believes exist even deeper in the complex under the Carrion Throne. See page 44 for more details on how Zayifid uses the PCs in this situation.
If the PCs encounter Zayifid here, he’s in his disguise as the gnoll assassin Rokova and he feigns cowardice and begs for his life, promising the PCs that he can secure them an audience with the Carrion King. If the PCs agree, he leads them to area I2 where he hopes the PCs and the Carrion King will fight. If the PCs inform him that the Carrion King is already dead, Rokova smiles and attempts to recruit their aid in exploring the deeper chambers below, as detailed on page 44.
If the PCs have already raised the alarm in the temple, “Rokova” relocates to area I2 to be with the Carrion King when the PCs arrive.
This janni takes many forms, ranging from a traveling priest to a humble scholar to a gnoll acolyte.
Health: 30
Armor: 3
Level 6 Speed Defense
Fire Armor 2
Damage: 2 Scimitar attacks: 5 (Scimitar)/7 vs. Fire Creatures
Movement: Short, Short (flying)
Skills: Level 6 on Flying, Perception, Traps; Level 7 Bluff, Disguise, Sneak
Languages: Celestial, Common, Terran; telepathy 100 ft., speak with animals
Combat: If confronted in this initial encounter, Zayifid does not attempt to fight—he simply delivers his message as detailed above and then attempts to flee to the House of the Beast. If the PCs somehow manage to corner him, he fights back as best he can but tries to leave the PCs alive, fighting only so long as it takes to escape—at this point, dead PCs are of no use to him.
Combat Expertise: Increase his Defense level by 1, decrease his scimitar attack to 1 per round.
Sneak Attack: Add 3 to damage if he catches this target by surprise.
Invisibility (self only)
Plane shift (elemental plane, astral plane, or material plane)
Change size: Can increase (enlarge) or decrease (reduce) the size of a target creature within short range for 1 minute.
Enlarge: +4 points to Might Pool, +1 Armor, +2 to your Might Edge, -1 disadv. step to Speed Defense and stealth checks, practiced using natural attack as heavy weapons.
Reduce: +4 points to Speed Pool, +2 Speed Edge, +1 adv. step to Speed defense and stealth step, -1 disadv. step to might and intimidation checks, -2 to damage (to a minimum of 1 ).
Create food and water
Ethereal Jaunt (for 1 hour)
Morale: Jann enjoy their privacy, preferring the solitude of the deep desert and isolated oases. They are usually suspicious of humans, but are often willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Jann have a strong cultural tradition of hospitality, and will never turn away someone in need of food, water, or shelter, though they might expect payment in the form of a favor at some later date.
Among the other genie races, jann generally have good relations with both djinn and shaitans. While not actively enemies, jann dislike the proud and aloof marids. Jann have a distinct aversion to the efreet, who often try to enslave them or conscript them into their armies.
Combat Gear chain shirt, fire outsider bane frost scimitar (artifact), 4 daggers;
Zephyr:
Other Gear hat of disguise
Well over a dozen nests of tattered blankets, straw, and furs cover the floor of this chamber. A pair of tables surrounded by rickety chairs stands in the middle of the room; each table is littered with half-empty bottles of wine and ale.
Creatures: The Carrion Guards barrack in this chamber, sleeping and drinking and otherwise whiling away the few hours each day they’re off guard duty. The first time the PCs enter this chamber, they find four off-duty Carrion Guards resting here; these guards quickly rise to attack if their rest is disturbed, but as they’re off duty, they don’t bother responding to larger alarms unless directly roused by others in the tribe. One of these nests is technically that of Rokova, although since he’s replaced the dead assassin, Zayifid has not slept here, preferring to sleep outside under the stars or in his hidden study in area H7 when he needs privacy.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 10
Armor: 2
Damage: Scimitar 4 damage; Longbow 4 damage + poison; stingchuck 4 damage + Level 3 nausea (1 damage vermin (no armor defense) and no action for 2 rounds)
Movement: Short
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: A Carrion Guard always opens combat by hurling his stingchuck if he can, then follows up with shots from his longbow, moving between shots as necessary to maintain ranged advantage. When mounted on a hyaenodon, a Carrion Guard usually takes 1 or 2 rounds to attack at range before riding into melee to continue the fight with scimitar and to allow his mount a chance to bite at foes.
Equipment: leather armor, heavy wooden shield, mwk scimitar, mwk composite longbow with 20 arrows (poisoned with Huge scorpion venom; Level 4 Might Defense Check, 4/4 Might damage), stingchuck; cypher potion of healing (restore 1d6 pool points)
Morale: Carrion Guards are fiercely loyal to their king and fight to the death.
A stingchuck is a foul bag made of a human’s head with the brain removed and the skull heavily scored so that, when the stingchuck is thrown, the whole thing breaks and splits like a ripe melon upon striking a target. The gnolls fill stingchucks with dozens of stinging insects patiently (and often painfully) harvested from nests on the lower slopes of Pale Mountain.
A stingchuck is a grenade-like weapon. When it strikes a target, it douses that target with dozens of ravenous biting and stinging vermin, inflicting 1d6 points of damage and forcing a Level 3 Might Defense save to avoid being nauseated for 2 rounds. Each round a victim remains nauseated by a stingchuck, he takes an additional 1 point of damage from the biting vermin (bypasses armor). All creatures within 5 feet of a bursting stingchuck take 1 point of damage from the biting insects that pepper them, but need not make Might Defense check to avoid being nauseated.
The walls of this room are densely decorated with lines of scripture written in red, decorated here and there with images of fanged mouths ringed by nine spidery legs. Eight mounds of sleeping furs line the walls, and in the center of the room sits a low circular stone table with a slightly convex surface. Rancid-looking candles line the edges of this table, and its center is caked with dried blood and heaped with bones.
Creatures: This chamber is the barracks for the 11 Carrion Initiates stationed at the House of the Beast.
With the exception of three currently on duty in the outlying region, the remaining eight are encountered on this level of the temple. At any one time, a pair of these eight serves in area I1 as guards, while the other six rest, meditate, feed, and offer gory minor sacrifices in the shared altar to Rovagug at the room’s center. The sacrifices here are mostly of small animals like lizards, jackals, and birds.
If the alarm is raised, these initiates fall into prayer for several minutes before they move out as a group to patrol the lower temple. If encountered here, they fight to the death to defend their den.
Hunched and feral, this furred, hyena-headed humanoid stands slightly taller than the average human.
Health: 11
Armor: 3
Damage: 6 damage + 2 negative energy damage
Movement: Short
Size: Medium
Modification: Darkvision
Languages: Gnoll
Combat: Initiates attack with their axes as they seek out badly wounded foes with deathwatch. Opponents that fall close to death are struck with inflict light wounds spells.
Equipment: splint mail, greataxe; 2 cyphers
Morale: Initiates fight to the death.
The door to this area is barred from the outside.
This filthy, reeking room is without decor—only a thick layer of vermin-infested moldy straw and lumpy sand covers the floor.
Creatures: This chamber is where the slaves of the House of the Beast are penned when they aren’t needed.
The number of slaves possessed by the temple is at a low now, with many of their number lost to the recent revolt.
Currently, only one slave languishes here, the others all being utilized elsewhere in the temple.
This one slave is a broken old man with barely any teeth left in his mouth—ironically, a Qadiran slave-trader named Amwyr Yuseifah (LE old male human expert 5).
A purveyor of exotic concubines, Yuseifah, upon hearing tales of the Carrion King’s extensive harem and voracious sexual appetites, was foolish enough to attempt to bargain with him. Ghartok’s interests did not extend to humans, though, and he had Yuseifah’s girls sacrificed and enslaved the old man more out of spite than for any real desire to keep him around.
Yuseifah has spent months locked in this room, routinely left behind by the gnolls when they need slaves for other purposes. Often left without food or water, he is badly starved, filthy, and sickly. During the darkest moment of his sentence, he murdered and ate another of the slaves, hiding the bones within the straw. Since then, he contracted several painful rashes, and among other things, leprosy (Might Level 3/Level 5; Incubation 2d4 weeks; 2 Intellect Damage)
If the PCs encounter Yuseifah, he begs for freedom, sincerely promising his saviors anything they desire.
Although reprehensible and vile, he’s actually worth quite a lot back in Katapesh, as he was a member of the Duskwalker guild in Katapesh’s Nightstalls. If he’s escorted back to Katapesh, the PCs can collect a reward of 1,000 gp from the Duskwalker guild for the slaver’s return, and Yuseifah himself rewards each PC with a beautiful slave of his own.
Of course, good-aligned characters should rightly balk at such rewards.