’Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep —
To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. – William Shakespeare
Along a rain-soaked highway, where the wheel ruts run as rivers and drenched boots suck and pull from deep mud, lies a shrine long abandoned. This temple to the Saint of Dreams has not seen use for many years and has fallen into disrepair. When the treasure hunters approach the shrine (as their primary destination or as a waypoint to somewhere deeper in the forest) they hear a shout and a scream. A woman, clearly an adventurer like themselves, comes out of the small shrine with mud and tears streaking down her face. The woman Lurien begs the treasure hunters to help her rescue Olerid, her hunting partner. Olerid has been taken by the magic of the shrine, and she needs help from the adventurers if they’re going to rescue him.
Theme: Dreams
Everything around the Shrine is distorted and tainted by the basin’s magics. Things that are utterly normal appear to be strange and mysterious, and the bizarre and unexplainable seem perfectly natural. Objects are distorted; distances altered; hallucinations and visions come from every corner. Entering the Dreaming only amplifies the effect, both to those who cross beyond and those who remain in the waking world.
Set Name: Shrine of Reverie
Set Goal: Recover Olerid’s spirit from the Dream
Description: The Shrine is a small, hexagonal, stone gazebo. The small set of steps leading up to the shrine are rough and weathered from years of disuse. Rivulets of rain water run across a thin band of carved reliefs around the edge of the roof, long since worn of any recognition. In the center of the gazebo is a small stone basin on a plinth. Olerid sits slumped against the wall of the shrine; eyes glazed over and a line of drool dribbling from his open mouth.
Moments
- In the corner of your vision, cat eyes blink at you out of the forest.
- You could swear that the rain holds itself suspended in the air when you aren’t looking, almost as if the world only existed in your own vision.
- You reach out to grab something, but no matter how far you stretch it is always just beyond your reach.
- You trip over nothing, falling to the ground without time to catch yourself. Instead of hitting the ground, you blink and find yourself standing up as if you had never tripped in the first place.
| Props | Traps | Treasures |
|---|---|---|
| The Forest Glade An overgrown clearing, full of knee-high grasses and wild weeds. The deep mud grabs onto your shoes and makes rapid movement impossible in the treacherous terrain. | -A pair of ground owls has been flooded out of their burrow, and they will fiercely defend their territory if someone gets too close. -Traveling through this glade takes frustratingly longer than it should, even with the muddy ground. | -The corpse of an old priest of the Saint of Dreams lies half buried in the mud behind the shrine. Wearing the amulet around his neck reduces the intensity of the dream effects on the wearer. |
| The Gazebo The grey stone gazebo provides the only shelter from the endless downpour. A thin bench runs around the edges of the shrine, and the Basin is in the very center. Olerid sits on the bench, a wooden mug still in his hands. | -Despite their hard stone seats, the benches are exceptionally comfortable. It would be so easy to fall asleep… -The air here feels thick, almost like you need to push through invisible spider webs or water. | -Carved into the base of the bench is an inscription of the Sleep ritual. -A small bowl of offerings still sits near the entrance, filled with tarnished silver coins. |
| The Basin The simple basin of water sits on a three-foot high plinth. A large crack in the basin sends water pouring down the side of the plinth, though the water level in the bowl remains constant. | -Drinking from the basin causes you to fall asleep. -Touching the plinth may appear as a hallucination of sand, pulling your hand in and refusing to let go. It threatens to fully pull your body into the plinth. | -Growing hidden within the plinth is a potted flower of Wolfsbane. The purple flowers glow with a twinkling light that falls like snow from the petals. |
| The Dreaming The Dream realm around the Shrine is an inverted perversion of the waking world. Thick spider webs fill the gazebo, and the rain outside flows upward into a glowing purple sky. The ground outside the shrine is fine black sand. | -K’laax the Broken clings to the top of the gazebo. Her thick webs make movement inside the gazebo incredibly difficult. -The Dreaming doesn’t obey the laws of physics, and the world actively tries to keep the treasure hunters from leaving. | -Olerid’s spirit is unconscious and trapped in a cocoon near the roof of the gazebo. -Bringing the black sand back into the waking world is a powerful psychedelic. Putting the sand in your eyes is the easiest way to get back to the waking world. |
K’laax the Broken
Endurance 8
A three-foot diameter spider, covered in short silver fur and with and eight-eyed face of a woman instead of the normal spider’s mandibles. K’laax took this abandoned shrine as her home once the Saint no longer had influence. K’laax knows that she doesn’t really stand to gain in a fight against all the adventurers at once, and would much rather bargain for some dream nourishment before letting the party leave.
- Behaviors
- Cleaning her many eyes with her front two legs.
- Far too many spindly legs reach out of the darkness at your face.
- Soft skittering is barely audible over the strange distorted rain,
- Beautiful humming and singing, its source unintelligible.
- Swirling colors, woven of strands of dreams.
- Pulling colorful light out of the unconscious Olerid’s ears.
- Defenses
- Spirit Weaver: K’laax can pull the dreams from the ears of anyone she has access to. Have the player describe a hope that they had for their character that is pulled away.
- Dream Threads: K’laax can weave her dream threads to control the physics of this place. After doing this twice, she runs out of energy and needs to collect more from Olerid or another spirit.
- Weaknesses
- The Amulet of the Saint of Dreaming
- Manifested Nightmares
This page is part of the One Set Dungeons series by Sam Zimmerman and is © Typhos Games. The text of this page is available to use under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 License. Trophy™ is a trademark of Hedgemaze Press. The trademark and “Designed for Trophy” Logo are © Hedgemaze Press, and are used with permission.
