Contents
Part 2: Inside the Crypts
The first areas inside the mausoleum are open to each other and can quickly become a single, harrowing encounter.
The last humanoid trespassers at this siteâbefore the adventurersâwere here to loot the place. Four human grave-robbers swam in through the facade a few years ago and, after ransacking area 5, attracted the attention of a shambling mound that often stalks this area. It is likely still here when the adventurers intrude. Its hulking mass includes the bones of the grave-robbers now.
Bound to the shambler and the bones within it is a wraith formed from the hateful greed of the lead grave-robber. The wraith haunts its grave, which is essentially inside the shambling mound. The wraith doesn't attack the shambler; it goes where the shambler goes.
The other three grave-robbers now haunt this place as three specters under the wraith's command. They tend to gather in area 6, near the treasures they collected.
General Features
The tombs demonstrate fine designs and quality work, all allowed to rot through neglect.
Construction
The interior spaces here were meant for somber memorials and funeral services. The stonework was well done but has been slowly sinking and sagging in mud over decades. The marble floors and carved walls are no longer plumb but are not dangerous.
Ceilings
Most ceilings throughout the tombs are arched to a height of 8 feet. Many are painted with murals of cloudy-blue or starry-night skies, flaking and moldy now.
Light
No natural light makes it into the mausoleum, except for a bit of overcast spill lighting in area 4. Every chamber has iron sconces for torches or lanterns, but no torches or lanterns remain.
Sound
Marble floors and walls carry footfalls, voices, and other echoes throughout the place.
4. Ceremonial Chamber
This space was intended for quiet contemplation and solemn services to honor the dead. It served those purposes for many years. Now it is rotting and crumbling. Loose treasures of monetary value were carried from here into area 6 by the grave-robbers before they died.
5. Northern Crypt
This area was thoroughly looted by the grave-robbers a few years ago. All items of monetary value are now in area 6, where the robbers took them before they died.
6. Southern Crypt
The grave-robbers fled here to save their spoils and their lives from the attack of the shambling mound. They failed. Amid inches of mud and debris on the ground are their rotting backpacks and the treasures they gathered.
If they have not already, the three specters attack when "their" treasures are disturbed here.
Treasure
The grave-robbers had gathered grave goods, candlesticks, metal fixtures, and other art objects worth a total of 440 gp, plus a spell scroll of lesser restoration, a potion of healing (greater), and a chime of opening.
7. Grand Mausoleum
The leader of the grave-robbers had barely set foot in this chamber when he was attacked. As such, it faintly glitters with traces of silver and gold from chalices, medals, statuettes, and other mementos.
A total of thirty-six people were interred in the eastern wall of this chamber. As was the custom in Secomber, none of them were interred with treasures of note.
Development
If the shambling mound and the wraith have not yet appeared, they are here.
Treasure
Many mementos scattered throughout this chamber have rotted to junk, but gold trinkets, silver funerary items, and other personal treasures of value remain, altogether worth 540 gp.
8. Processional Corridor
The threshold above the doorway to area 8 is etched with the name Everlake. Prying open this broken seal requires a successful DC 17 Strength (Athletics) check.
In the corridor, 30 feet beyond the once-sealed doorway, Sylvene installed one of her magic stele traps, facing this door. It has disadvantage on its passive Perception score to detect trespassers peering through the gaps in the doorway.
Magic Stele Trap
The stele can detect trespassers out to a range of 60 feet in front of it. It has a passive Perception score of 18. To disarm or dispel this trap requires a successful DC 18 check. When triggered, the trap emits a bolt of lightning 60 feet long. Any creature in the target area that fails a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw takes 22 (4d10) lightning damage, or half as much damage with a successful save.
The lightning ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried. This stele can emit lightning a total of three times before becoming nothing more than inert stone.
Aside from housing the trap, this corridor is meant simply to set Waltarn's crypt deeper into the cliff face, to protect it from erosion and settling for a time.
The corridor is in considerably better shape at its north end, where a second seal was installed to further prevent intrusions. This slab is better seated in place, requiring a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check to force open.
9. Tiled Passage
This short passage was a gift to Sylvene from Artura, to wow her upon her entrance to the site for Waltarn's burial. It was never intended to be trapped, but it is now. This is as far as Tyreus ventured into the tomb after entering through area 11. He left two traps here using linked glyphs (see appendix A). Finding any of these glyphs requires a successful DC 17 Intelligence (Investigation) check.
First, an alarm glyph has been placed on the stairs (A) to alert Tyreus and let him know it is time for him to cast project image and appear in area 11.
Secondly, a detection glyph has been placed on the stairs in almost the same spot (A), linked to an effect glyph (B), which casts fear (DC 17) up the stairs to the east when any humanoid creature touches or passes over the detection glyph.
Tyreus's aim is to drive frightened intruders toward the spell glyphs in area 10.
10. Memorial Chamber
The highland lake is a depiction of Highstar Lake in the northern region of the High Moorsâa spot Waltarn loved when he visited it with his fellow adventurers. The murals are works by the Waterdhavian artist Saraque Skyhill.
The four figures depicted here are the members of Sylvene's final adventuring party, as commissioned by Sylvene. From left to right:
- Artura Dwaircalis
- Waltarn Everlake
- Sylvene herself
- Hamish Hewland
Tyreus hated this room. He has hidden a glyph of warding on Waltarn's face, created to cast phantasmal killer on the first humanoid to get within 5 feet of the glyph.
11. Grand Crypt
This chamber's sarcophagi contain the coffins of Sylvene and Waltarnâunopened and intactâplus a recessed prayer area to the north and a ritual cleansing area to the south. The pillars that support the area are carved with spiral whorls like the stele outside the Wizard's Barrow (from In Scarlet Flames). All the metal fixtures in this area have a green patina and are made to form similar spirals where they can.
Sylvene didn't return to the Sword Coast as she intended to, and her sarcophagus here is empty. (She is interred somewhere in Ravnica.)
The brass seal is the site of an etched and dyed teleportation circle. It was used by Sylvene to visit the site, by Artura to attend to maintenance here, and by Tyreus to plunder the crypt.
While here, Tyreus removed five keystones of creation from the crypt. They were set in the eastern wall and had never been attuned, so soon their power can still be his.
Development
If he can arrange it, Tyreus appears to be standing in the teleportation circle when the adventurers arrive. (It is actually an illusory image of Tyreus, who is hundreds of miles away at Highstar Lake and making use of a project image spell.)
The human before you appears pale but flushed, with dark hair in a long braid and an exquisitely trimmed beard. He wears dark, fitted clothes and high boots along with a fine blue overcoat. He looks relieved that you're here.
Tyreus wanted to see the adventurers, both to satisfy his curiosity and to help him scry on them, if they survive his trap. He intends to let one of the adventurers escape to sow fear.
In the meantime, Tyreus is happy to converse with the adventurers and learn what he can from them. He tries to keep their attention on him so his minions can close in on them: Tyreus has placed two tenebrous assassins in the crypt. They arrived with him earlier and he left them behind. They have taken up hiding spots in the crypt and attempt to avoid detection by the adventurers until Tyreus gives the order to attack.
Trap
Tyreus' final trap is a pair of linked glyphs: a detection glyph (A) on the ground between the coffins and an effect glyph (b) to create a wall of fire that blocks the entrance.
Treasure
Funeral goods, mementos, prayer objects, and other nonmagical treasures in the area are made predominantly of silver, worth a total of 510 gp. In a prayer bowl in the northern area of the crypt waits more treasure, overlooked by Tyreus when he was here: two chips of creation (see appendix B).
Tyreus Came to Talk
Tyreus likes to hear himself talk. He believes himself to be uniquely clever and unfairly lonely. He isn't worried about the adventurers' capacity to get in his way at this stage. He'd rather gloat, order their elimination, and talk while they fight his assassins.
In so doing, Tyreus might mention the following:
- He only recently learnedâfrom diaries he took from Sylvene's librariesâthat Waltarn Everlake was his grandfather. He's not impressed with Waltarn; Tyreus considers him a weak, common simpleton.
- Waltarn and his family didn't want him brought back to life after he was slain on an adventure. "What cowards," Tyreus might say. "What a lack of vision."
- Tyreus took the five keystones of creation Sylvene attempted to hide here with Waltarn. With them, he will "create for myself a place worthy of the followers I deserve."