(This was originally a part of an Infinigrad suburb I was working on - but as is often the case I got distracted by other projects and didn't finish it! I had written this temple pretty much in its totality so thought I would share! Another salvaged part of the suburb is in The Cape of Old Demons. No stats because, this is where I'm at rules wise.)
Put this locale in a hex or on a street.
Cult House of the Saprothan Taxonomists: The walls, domes and columns of this temple are infested with window-sized arched gateways, either carved into the stone or made of affixed wood. These gate’s house shallow indentations - sometimes covered with crude cloth curtains, other times housing a painted arcane symbol. Most are marred by splashes of dried ooze.
The entry, large wooden double doors - studded with the bronze figures of morphing, protean beasts, is locked.
The many windows covering the temple are bordered up poorly.
Inside is a secretive order of leviathan cataloguers/worshipers, each member a Saprothan Taxonomist: Pale creatures in heavy hooded robes, brass censers hung around their neck wreath them in heavy, sickly sweet smoke. The censers are shaped like gates - inside each a tiny brass effigy of a different levithan.
Taxonomist’s meditate in front of a mock leviathan summoning gate, letting images of swirling, unformed beasts wash over their mind’s eye. If bothered they will scamper off towards the nearest exit or darkness - only drawing their jagged knives if cornered, or incessantly pestered.
Map Generator:
d6 Temple Doors:
- Huge, leathery wings - nailed to a top of an arch. Part like curtains and reek offensively of pickling juice.
- Locked and dented brass door. Embossed with a wide-eyed bat giving birth to countless protean malformed beasts.
- Unlocked wooden door, soaked with grey slime that vaguely smells of ozone.
- Black curtain with 6 brass, featureless, masks stitched into it. Slightly jangles.
- Small shrines installed into underside of arch. Each vomiting an opaque goo, creating a thin sheet of slimefall which puddles briefly before dissipating.
- Locked stone door - carved with images of spiders and octopi marching forth from arched gates.
What is in the chamber of the Cult House of the Saprothan Taxonomists? Roll a d6 three times:
Room basics:
- d6 flat piles of rags, used for sleeping, next to slabs of wood strewn with crude eating/writing implements.
- A chamber filling stone column arch, a mess of different patterned swatches of cloth nailed to it.
- d6 man height stone column arches. A single slimey banner with an occult symbol hangs in the middle of each.
- d6 thick, ceiling supporting columns. A ladder and a set of engraving tools is chained to each. Columns are covered to the height of the ladder in endlessly permutating arcane symbols.
- A slab of dark rock used as a laboratory. A jumble of books, pens and tiny pots of chemicals surround a fingertip sized portal leaking slime.
- A single, chamber filling stone arch, coated in slime, dried blood and ichor. Ceiling, floor and arch are covered in deep gouges.
- The floor strewn with d6 fist sized blocks of wood carved into the shape of gates. Each surrounded by dozens of tiny candles and cushions.
- A brass pot or glass jar of slime surrounded by dozens of tiny candles and cushions.
- A wagon-sized, gilded cage covered in slime. A despondent Leviathan Spawn withers within.
- A ruined stone arch, over a slime filled crater in the temple’s floor. The gate intermittently summons a miasmic portal that heaves grey bread and an overbearing stench. Test Body if bread eaten to avoid being violently ill for a day.
- A large pond sized crater in the temple’s floor is filled with slime. A single Leviathan Spawn wallows within.
- Rows of man-sized ruined columns. Snapped and crumbling and covered in thin layer of slime.
- A Plane Dredged Shard glows seductively, propped up in a prominent position of isolation.
- Several piles of cultist junk: Wooden handheld gates, Slime smeared scrolls, Chains, Quills, Old robes, Incense dust, Rag face masks.
- d6 Saprothan Taxonomists meditating intently at the largest gate type structure in chamber. Shriek and scamper if interrupted.
- d6 Saprothan Taxonomists laying in a circle around a Plane Dredged Shard recording notes in filthy manuscripts. Will shriek, shout and protect the shard with their lives.
- A hidden gate to a hungry realm will attempt to devour the unwary. Test Luck and Body to avoid being bitten by a rogue maw of an interdimensional portal.
- d6 Saprothan Taxonomists sitting cross legged and chanting loudly over wails and screams as a quivering Leviathan Spawn painfully consumes each taxonomist.
Details tables: Use these as needed.
Slime, d6: Interdimensional effluent, byproduct of levithan summoning.
- Swirling black and red. Ever steaming black smoke. Smells of tin. Vivifies and automates any mechanical thing it comes in contact with.
- Tiny eyes and teeth swimming in green grey goop. Stinks of rotting vegetables. Will slimily snap at passerbys and burnmelt flesh.
- Yellow and crumbly like glued sand. Will slowly but severely desiccate anything it touches.
- Molten silver with rubies that constantly pop like boils. Smells strongly of ozone. Will burrow into any flesh it touches and attach to bone beneath.
- Aquamarine, thick and bubbling. Filled with clusters of green gemspheres that explode with more of the slime when coming into contact with air. Can be drunk and is very quenching.
- Emerald, iridescent and reflective. Slowly cluster goops and forms into the shape of objects nearby.
Leviathan Spawn, d6: Bear sized interdimensional horrors. Part pet, part deity.
- Furry tiger toad. A huge maw filled with fangs. Backside covering pores constantly belch charming mind-controlling gas.
- Grey slug with a melting beak of metal. Chrome flowers erupt from flesh, spurting gouts of yellow acid.
- Snail of stone, incredibly slow-moving. Covered in blood-sucking needles.
- Millipede, backside covered in red-orange glowing crystals. Constantly belching flame and vomiting magma.
- Floating pink jellyfish, hundreds of scintillating gems floating and glinting within. Thousands of flower-covered grey tendrils droop from body - contact with these result in total loss of ego.
- Furry bear slug, covered in insectile lots of slashing claw scythe arms which terminate in rows of fangs.
Plane Dredged Shard, d6: Interdimensional ambergris. Holy relics to the Taxonomists.
- Impossibly flat gem of pink blue sunset. Intermittently burps out non-euclidian flames that hurt the mind to look upon - spreading shimmering mirages of reality bending gas.
- Caged, shiny brown sphere. Propped up on tiny insectile legs and oozing red acid from its underside. Scuttles away if approached but will melt flesh if handled.
- Damp and mossy huge blue diamond. Ever dripping oozing moss clumps that spread and grow, seemingly without the need for any sustenance. Holding it envigorates the whole body.
- Red stone, warm to the touch. Contains a pocket of living magma. Endurance never falters when held in the hand. Stone enjoys being rolled and will emanate this desire to those nearby.
- Dark dark green, near black, gemstone, covered in lizard like scales. Approaching the shard causes palpable confusions and bewilderment.
- Milky, sandy coloured diamond. Touching this shard transports you to a dimension composed purely of tesselating version of Cult House of the Saprothan Taxonomists. Use the map generator and chamber stocker to generate an endless temple - until another version of this shard is encountered. This version of the shard teleports those that touch back to their normal reality.
