The Firesoul Phantom of Keystone Tower

<div class='cover-header'>The Firesoul Phantom</div>

<div class='cover-footer'>a D&D 5e adventure for levels 5-10</div>

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# <small>the</small> Firesoul Phantom of Keystone Tower

Y _ou feel the immense heat on your skin, beads of sweat already rolling down your spine, and then it appears, wreathed in flames, its face expressionless, distant, alien. Its two ember eyes focus on something on the ground. The phantom's ghastly form floats through the air, extending its spectral hand towards your companion's unconscious body, lying motionless on the floor. Your ears are filled with the roar of the fire and the rhythmic thrumming of the arcane mechanism in the center of the room, like the beating heart of a leviathan that swallowed you all whole. The infernal specter's hand reaches your friend's body and her skin begins to blacken. Moments later it becomes harder to even remember her name..._

### Introduction

This pdf contains everything you'll need to DM a home-brewed adventure for a party of 3-6 players.

The adventure can be run as a one-shot or integrated into your own campaign, as a self-contained side quest. Feel free to treat it as a toolbox, add and remove elements as you see fit.

Depending on your party's size and play style, the adventure can be completed within **6-12 hours** or spread across 2 to 3 shorter sessions.

### Why?

I am sharing this adventure because I deeply enjoy tabletop role-playing games and want to make it easier for others to enjoy them too.

I originally created this as a one-shot for a D&D 5e group that I was a player in, all of whom are credited at the end of this document. What you're reading is a lessons-learned, adjusted version of that experience.

My hope is that people who are new to D&D will be able to use it as an introduction to the game and that dungeon masters will find some inspiration in it for their own adventures and campaigns.

### Contact
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to write to me at _velabooks@protonmail.com_.

### What?

This adventure's theme is _loss_, its core story revolves around having lost something that was deeply meaningful to us and also being lost in the quest to regain it.

In terms of mood the story contains both humor and scarier elements, but it doesn't delve into anything overly dark. It contains one city-like location with a number of NPCs as well as a dungeon-delve (or rather, a tower-climb) with a narrative element told through various clues that the players will discover along the way. It is designed to end with a confrontation with the story's Big Bad Evil Guy equivalent, although there are a number of alternative endings outlined later on.

<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a7/95/4d/a7954d2adb3d70abf2c5ddd75c9c8105.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:310px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Cover art by Kai Fine Art's Jason Silva. Art on this page by 000fesbra000. </div>

###### _The Firesoul. Cover artwork by Kai Fine Art's [John Silva](https://www.kaifineart.com/2016/12/john-silva.html). Art on this page by [000fesbra000](https://www.deviantart.com/000fesbra000)_

Within this document, you will find:
* 2 battle maps (which can be downloaded [here](https://i.ibb.co/HNKnqZ1/Keystone-Tower-Map-First-Floor-5.png) and [here](https://i.ibb.co/SDCgJ7V/Keystone-Tower-Map-Last-Floor-2.png) or in other formats on request)
* a number of story-hooks designed to help you keep your players' characters engaged and motivated
* a step-by-step guide on how to run the adventure as a DM
* stat-blocks for most possible encounters
* a list of additional clues that can be gained from NPCs or through successful ability checks (e.g. history or arcana) 
* inspirational artwork from credited artists
* finally, the next page contains a **Table of Contents** which should make it easier to navigate the pdf.

### Inspiration

The adventure draws inspiration from my own favorite works of fiction. If your players like these, there's a good chance they'll also enjoy this one-shot:

* MtG's _Ravnica_ setting
* Planescape: Torment & Torment: Numenera
* Stephen King's _The Dark Tower_
* Terry Pratchett's _Discworld_

If you're curious how these 5 creations are interwoven in one adventure, read on :) !

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### Where to begin

This section should make it easier to navigate this document and outline all of its contents & subsections. Depending on your preference, you may start reading the adventure page by page, in which case **you will not learn all the information at once**.

Instead, parts of the story will be revealed to you in a way similar to how your players may one day experience it.

Alternatively, if you prefer to learn about the entire backstory that sets the scene for the events of the adventure itself, jump over to the **backstory synopsis** section, which is a 2 page summary on pages 28-29.

###

# Table of Contents

###

</div>

- #### <span>2 </span><span>Introduction</span>
  - <span>2 </span><span>Contact Information</span>
- #### <span>3 </span><span>Table of Contents</span>
- #### <span>4 </span><span>Story Outline</span>
A one-page summary of the entire playable adventure.
- ### <span>5 </span><span> Main Adventure Guide
A step-by-step guide to running the adventure, backstory information is gradually revealed within.
- #### <span>5 </span><span>Approach to Keystone Tower</span>
  - ###### <span>5 </span><span>Story Hooks</span>
  - ###### <span>6 </span><span>The Oath-Breaker</span>
  - ###### <span>7 </span><span>First Encounter with the Phantom</span>
  - ###### <span>7 </span><span>The Town of Val</span>
  - ###### <span>12 </span><span>Entrance to Keystone Tower</span>
  - ###### <span>14 </span><span>Keystone Interfaces</span>
- #### <span>15 </span><span>First Floor</span>
Map of both the first and final floor are available for download via the links provided on page 2, as well as in other formats (e.g. Dungeon Painter Studio) on demand.
  - ###### <span>15 </span><span><b>First Floor Map</b></span>
  - ###### <span>16 </span><span>Hall of Audience</span>
  - ###### <span>16 </span><span>Sunday School, Shelfie & Chestie</span>
  - ###### <span>17 </span><span>The Vegetable Garden</span>
  - ###### <span>17 </span><span>The Druidcrafter Memoir</span>
  - ###### <span>17 </span><span>The Kitchen of Encouragement</span>
  - ###### <span>18 </span><span>The Endless Resurrection</span>
- #### <span>19 </span><span>Second Floor</span>
  - ###### <span>19 </span><span>Finn the Vampire</span>
- #### <span>20 </span><span>Third Floor</span>
  - ###### <span>20 </span><span>The Tree of Truth</span>
  - ###### <span>21 </span><span><b>The Puzzle</b></span>
- #### <span>22 </span><span>Final Floor</span>
  - ###### <span>22 </span><span><b>Final Floor Map</b></span>
  - ###### <span>23 </span><span>The Chamber of the Mind</span>
  - ###### <span>23 </span><span>The Red Star</span>
  - ###### <span>24 </span><span>The Keystone Heart</span>
  - ###### <span>25 </span><span>The Keystone Mainframe</span>
  - ###### <span>25 </span><span>Aethera and the Spore Garden</span>
  - ###### <span>25 </span><span>Final Battle</span>
  - ###### <span>27 </span><span>The Aftermath</span>
- ### <span>28 </span><span> Other Resources</span>
- #### <span>29 </span><span> Backstory Synopsis</span>
A two-page summary of all events preceding the main adventure, needed to understand the full story.
  - ###### <span>29 </span><span> Known Issues, Future Fixes</span>
- #### <span>30 </span><span> World-Relevant Information</span>
  - ###### <span>30 </span><span> The Fist of Five</span>
  - ###### <span>30 </span><span> The Keystone Tower</span>
  - ###### <span>30 </span><span> Pyromortis</span>
  - ###### <span>30 </span><span> The Oath-Breaker</span>
- #### <span>31 </span><span> Monster Stat-Blocks</span>
  - ###### <span>31 </span><span>Aethera, Druid Form</span>
  - ###### <span>31 </span><span>Aethera, Mushroom Hulk Form</span>
  - ###### <span>32 </span><span>Aethera, Fungal Dragon</span>
  - ###### <span>32 </span><span>Finn, Simic-Hybrid Vampire</span>
  - ###### <span>32 </span><span>Leaf, Oath-Breaker Paladin</span>
  - ###### <span>33 </span><span>Modron Minions</span>
  - ###### <span>33 </span><span>Myconids</span>
  - ###### <span>33 </span><span>Oblex, Young</span>
  - ###### <span>34 </span><span>Oblex, Elder</span>
- #### <span>34 </span><span> Appreciation</span>
  - ###### <span>34 </span><span>Artist Credits</span>

</div>

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# Story Outline

### Bird's Eye View

First, let's introduce you to what this story is all about. If you're a player intending to experience this adventure, you should probably stop reading - spoilers ahead. This section is for the DMs, and its goal is to give you an overview of the entire narrative. A much more detailed step by step walkthrough will follow.

The story begins with a quest being bestowed upon the adventuring party - **you are tasked with delivering an imprisoned oath-breaker paladin to the leader of his former group of fellow heroes, known as the Fist of Five**. This is the objective presented to your players at the start of the game, but it is not the real objective of the adventure.

The real core of the adventure comes from the journey through the eponymous *Keystone Tower*, which is the seat of power for _Aethera_, a half-orc female druid of the circle of spores. She is the leader of the Fist of Five, the person to whom your party's captive is meant to be delivered.

As soon as your players make their way to the first floor of Keystone Tower, they will discover that things are not as they seemed. As they make their way up, they will encounter the other members of the Fist of Five, heroes of the nearby lands, in increasingly dire circumstances. One will be found locked in a resurrection machine, trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth. Another will attack the party in a frenzied panic of a newly-turned vampire. The adventure is all about figuring out the mystery of what happened to the Fist of Five and finally facing Aethera on the topmost level of the tower.

### The Mission

There's many possible reasons to take the mission of delivering the oath-breaker prisoner to his former leader - financial gratification, the desire to become more famous as heroes than even the Fist of Five, simple righteous anger at a paladin who fell from grace... but for this adventure we do want this assignment to be a bit more binding than simple psychological motivations. Drawing inspiration from the Ravnica setting, the recommended way to give your party an incentive to carry out this task is having them be bound by an arcane law-magic contract with 3 specific conditions:

1. Deliver the Oath-Breaker to Aethera, alive.
2. Do not free him from his bounds.
3. Do not remove his gag.

If they break the tertiary or secondary conditions, increasingly dire price will be paid by each and every member of the party. Breaking the primary one, well ... let's just hope it doesn't come down to that for now.

### Start with an Earthquake and Build up from There

It's good to start the actual session with a bang. The assignment of the mission can be introduced in a pre-game cutscene, but this moment is when the heroes are meant to become genuinely curious about what is happening.

We start already a couple of days of travel later, in the wilderness, on the road leading to the port town of Val, where Aethera is said to reside.

Our heroes take an evening's rest, leaving perhaps one or two members on guard duty. Certain magical defenses may be set up. None of this prepares the party for what's about to come. Those party members who are awake begin to feel familiar sensations of warmth - e.g. the pleasant southern wind for a swashbuckler rogue, the radiant glow of their holy symbol for a paladin, the familiar aftertaste of an explosion for an evocation wizard. Their movements become sluggish, as if they were encased in molasses. The surrounding trees, vibrantly green mere moments ago, all of a sudden look like gnarled, wizened husks of their former selves. The air becomes filled with the smell of ashes ...

An apparition of a humanoid figure wreathed in otherworldly flames appears, just a couple steps from your precious cargo.

It seems to reach out its hand to the Oath-Breaker, still in his bounds and with a sheet of metal over his mouth, effectively gagging him. The earth beneath the phantom is scorched, his hand reaches towards the face of the imprisoned paladin and the metal around his face begins to glow from the heat. What will your party do?

### Driftwood Town

After the initial encounter with the Firesoul Phantom, your party will continue making its way to the Driftwood Town of Val, a medium size port, with cat-shark hybrids playing in the streets and a slew of other unusual inhabitants. The moment the party crosses its border, the distant shape of the Keystone Tower becomes visible. As it does, its name enters the mind of each party member through strange, arcane means as if it was a living being introducing itself in this alien fashion.

However, in order to get to the tower, our heroes must go through Val. Many of its townspeople had been cut down by your Oath-Breaker prisoner, before he fled, only to be apprehended much later on. Some of the people you meet will bear a grudge. Others, strangely, will seem grateful to the fallen paladin for his past deeds.

### Keystone Tower

Climbing level after level of this arcano-mechanical wonder, entities from other spheres of existence and familiar creatures with unusual twists will enter the adventure.

Other members of the Fist of Five will be found within, often in unexpectedly dire circumstances. Your party may find themselves befriending mimics and having strange discussions with well-meaning modrons from the plane of Mechanus, making pacts with the Arch Fey, fighting abominations and solving puzzles for their very lives.

### Aethera and epilogue

At the top of the tower awaits Aethera, with the answers the players are yearning for. But not everything is what it seems, and the most heroic choices may not be the ones that lead to the greater good.

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# Step by step
### Main Adventure Guide

This part of the document contains a detailed walk-through for the entire adventure. The stat blocks for the NPCs / monsters can be found in a separate, alphabetized section later on. Certain interesting characters get their own vignettes within this chapter. The two battle-maps depicting two levels of the Keystone Tower can also be found within.

### Story hooks
Let's start with different ways to get your players' characters into this adventure. We've already described the idea of a magically-binding contract, inspired by Ravnica's law magic of the Azorius Senate and the Orzhov Syndicate:

<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/564x/cd/b1/3f/cdb13f38ee1d7b58ca6bdbc70ae0d92a.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:330px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Wayne Reynolds for the Return to Ravnica MtG deck</div>

###### _Law-magic. Artwork by [Wayne Reynolds](https://www.waynereynolds.com/)_

In the original playthrough of this adventure with my group, they receive the assignment from a new adventuring Guildmistress, formerly of the Orzhov. Here's an excerpt from how that scene played out:

### Law-magical Contract
You find yourselves in the lavish offices of the new Guildmaster. There’s a job to be done and she’s selected you for it. The room is filled with your companions. People you have learned to depend on, people who have saved your skin. _Friends_.

You look upon the faces of your team-mates to see excitement and trepidation, mixed in equal measures. You wonder if your face betrays the same emotions.

The Guildmaster’s white, black & gold robes and the mastery of law-magic betray her origins to be that of Ravnica’s Orzhov Syndicate, a guild obsessed with order, rules and profit above all things. Become indebted to the Orzhov and you may find yourself paying the debt after your soul’s left your body, or so the rumour goes.

You’ve heard from other adventuring parties that she does things a little differently than the previous holder of the position. From the cold welcome you sense that she doesn’t hold you in the highest regard. Finally, she speaks:

_- Your mission is simple, and thus I hope you’ll prove up to the challenge, if it can even be called that. A member of the famous Fist of Five has gone mad and tore a bloody path through the port town of Val._

_Why a hero, let alone a paladin, would turn against his own party I neither know nor care. The Fist’s leader - Aethera - has put a bounty on him and she wants him returned to her as soon as possible. She wants him **alive** , which I personally think proves she’s an even worse leader than his betrayal would suggest._

_Regardless, she was once a member of our Adventuring Guild herself, before the Fist became famous and decided to branch out. I really need to make some changes to the sign-up contracts for new joiners. But I digress. She’s reliable when it comes to payment and she will pay **direly** to bring this embarrassment to an end, I’m sure._

_You’ll be relieved to hear that the fugitive has already been apprehended by your betters. To his credit, he did take out almost the entire party I’ve sent after him, before they managed to bring him down. Well, lucky you. Since they no longer have the numbers, you get to be babysitters. Your job is to take this fallen oathbreaker back to Val, where Aethera resides, and deliver him to her._

_Think the meagre scale of the challenge matches the mediocrity of your skill?_

You exchange confused looks. You were hoping for something a little more engaging than a simple drop-off. Val isn’t that far from your city, albeit the roads are not as safe as they once were, with strange and alien creatures appearing seemingly out of nowhere every day. And you’ve heard of the great deeds of the Fist of Five, their adventures are an inspiration, the stuff of songs. The disdain in the Guldmaster’s voice is palpable and it leaves a bad taste in your mouths. You will prove her wrong.

_- Very well, at least you don’t run your mouths too much. Silence will always be treated as acceptance here. Hold out your left arms...._

</div>

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Reluctantly, you obey. The Guildmaster’s robes move even though there’s no wind in the chamber. Three golden strands of arcane light wrap themselves around the outstretched arm of each and every one of you. As they tighten their grasp you can feel the magic burn its way into your flesh and - you fear - even deeper than flesh.

_- Perfect. You are now bound by the Contract. It has three conditions, all very basic, I’m sure you’ve read the updated terms and conditions of our guild. In this specific case the conditions are:_

1. _Deliver the Oathbreaker to Aethera, alive._
2. _Do not free him from his bounds at any time._
3. _Do not remove his gag._

_- The primary condition’s fulfilment will end the Contract. Breaking the secondary and tertiary conditions will result in increasingly … unpleasant consequences._

As she says that last word your skin feels like its on fire where the golden arcane energy wrapped itself around your arms. But the pain goes beyond the physical. Yet it is over almost as soon as it began. Almost.

_- Perfect, don’t waste any more of my time. It’s simple. Break those and you’ll pay… and more importantly we won’t. Return after you’ve accomplished the task for your reward._

_You could never reach the level of the Fist of Five, but maybe you'll be able to handle one of them. Your prisoner awaits below…_
</div>

This gave the party ample reasons to prove the rather unsympathetic guildmistress wrong. It also sets up the dynamic between heroic and egoistic choices, that will play a part later on in the adventure.

Other possible story hooks:

* a cleric or paladin in your party receives a mission from their deity, with the same stipulations as the magically binding contract.
* a druid, ranger or even a barbarian on the path of the zealot finds the oath-breaker bound in the middle of a forested region, the moment they step into the hidden circle of druidic runes, they are bound by the elder spirits to return him to Aethera, as punishment for his unnatural, necromantic practices.
* if you're integrating this adventure into a larger campaign, you can even begin it with a bounty contract, asking the party to hunt the oath-breaker whilst he's still on the loose.

### The Oath-Breaker

The first member of the Fist of Five that our heroes get to meet is the Oath-Breaker half-eladrin paladin, by the name of Leaf. He is still wearing his armor, deeply green and adorned with floral and chitinous patterns, reminiscent of the carapace of a beetle and forest mulch.

<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/ca/cd/5ccacd4cfd0083283f2dbf863ed4fb76.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:330px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Veronica Kozlova</div>

###### _The Oath-Breaker. Artwork by the amazing [Veronica Kozlova](https://www.artstation.com/sleeping_bird)_

Where the armor touches his skin, it seems inflamed and irritated, as if the suit was rejecting its owner. It has in fact become cursed, the moment he broke his oath, making it impossible to remove it after his capture. Unbeknownst to the group, the suit is capable of instantly generating a blade-of-grass type of sword and a similarly nature-themed shield.
 
 He is found bound and gagged, in a full-body arcano-mechanical contraption, similar to the one shown in the Doctor Strange movie. It levitates a couple inches above the ground and can be moved by a gentle push, making him easy to transport by one or two people.
 
 A sheet of metal is connected to the contraption, effectively making him unable to speak, but there's a simple latch that allows anyone to remove it. This is the supposedly disgraced cargo that needs to be delivered to Aethera, his former leader.
 
 The only information the adventuring party has at this point is that he broke his oath, killed a number of people in Val, raised some of them as undead servants and tried to escape, but justice eventually found him.
 
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 When you actually begin the game session, you can have your party members make history checks about the Fist of the Five - you will find snippets of information about the world, the Fist of Five, the city of Val and the Keystone Tower in a separate section, but it is worth noting at this point that Leaf is known to be a half-brother of another member of the five, and there are also rumours of a love triangle between the two brothers and Aethera. **However, even with an extremely high roll on the check, no party member should be able to recall the other brother's name**, which they should find odd.

### First Encounter with the Phantom

You may choose to have the actual session begin anywhere from the point of the binding magical contract to actually entering the Keystone Tower (especially if you only have a couple of hours of play time) but in my play-test the session began on the road to Val, in the wilderness.

The point here is to start with a _bang_. Your party feels relatively safe and you drop this near-invulnerable spectre on them. It ignores their magical defenses (e.g. Leomund's Tiny Hut or Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum), which is meant to up the stakes and show them that this isn't any type of magic that they are used to. This is **soul magic**.

The spectre's appearance should start innocently (the feeling of familiar sources of warmth for the sleeping party members) and then intensify. The more _sensitive_ members of the party may receive visions of scorched lands and post-apocalyptic vistas. A good example of a similar mood conveyed in a tv show would be [this scene](https://youtu.be/ay5pXNTBFtU?t=125) from Supernatural.

### Firesoul's Entrance

_The Phantom appears as a humanoid shape wreathed in blood-red flames, the fire roaring like a living animal, the noise deafening. It appears 20 feet from the bound Oath-Breaker and its attention seems to be focused on your cargo._

_Your body seems unable to move with its usual swiftness, as if the immense heat emanating from this strange spectre was turning the air around you into some thick liquid. Your mind begins to panic but you rein it in. You've handled monsters before. Whatever this thing is, you and your friends can handle it. Or so you hope._

The party should roll for initiative and each get 1 turn. Some of them may attempt to parlay with the apparition (to no avail), others may try to assess it's nature (feel free to reveal something about soul magic for a high enough roll), most will try to attack or protect their friends, possibly even shield the Oath-Breaker.

The Phantom should not react to most attacks (e.g. arrows will get incinerated upon contact) but a high persuasion roll or the presence of a half-orc female in the group (resembling Aethera) might draw its attention for a split second. Similarly a spell of high enough potence might disperse it.

Overall, the spectre will float towards the Oath-Breaker, leaving scorched earth underneath its feet. It will hold out its hand towards the gag and cause the metal to glow with internal heat. The party should be forced to make a choice about breaking the 3rd condition of the magical contract - either remove the gag and face a consequence (e.g. -1D10 permanent hit-points) or leave the heated metal to begin burning the flesh of the Oath-Breaker, potentially leading to e.g. loss of an eye.

</div>

If the party chooses to break the 3rd (and least important) condition of the law-magical agreement, they will lose health, but get the chance to gain information from the Oath-Breaker.

The moment the Phantom touches the Oath-Breaker, it disappears and the visions of a burned landscape should cease. The party is left with the aftermath of their choice and the knowledge that their magical defenses can no longer be trusted. Stakes should be high (this contract may be more than they bargained for) and the party is meant to be curious about this strange apparition. **To make things even more curious, ask everyone who witnessed the Phantom to make a WIS-10 saving throw, on a failure the memories of the encounter begin to quickly fade from their mind.**

A high arcana or religion check can reveal that in certain rare circumstances the soul itself can be a source of magic. The party may have heard of rare cases where an arcane or divine caster sacrificed their own immortal essence to put an unbreakable curse on their sworn enemy or save their loved one from certain death. Such magic is rare and unpredictable.

If the party chooses to remove the gag from the Oath-Breaker (and possibly heal his wounds), they should be shown that the inflammation from the cursed armour resists healing magic. Depending on their persuasion or insight, they might glean clues that Leaf is not entirely lost to darkness. He will ask to be let go, which the party will most likely refuse to do. He may warn them that they do not know what they are doing, but will refuse to say more unless he is set free.

## Val

Originally a shanty town that grew around a pitstop for ships traveling between larger cities, Val was slow to gain any sort of prominence. Nestled in a steep valley from which it took its name, with a saltwater river running through its middle, Val wasn't of much interest for anyone other than rough sailors and stowaways looking for a place to lay low. That is until the day the Keystone Tower appeared.

This giant structure appeared on the rocky promontory overlooking Val's harbor one memorable day. There was no sound, no portents, one day the townsfolk simply looked up from their windows and there it was. The moment you laid your eyes on the thin, metallic spire piercing the rocks at a slightly bent angle, its name appeared in your mind. _Keystone Tower_. Almost as if it was introducing itself.

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Since then, random storms and changes in the currents of the seas have made Val more valuable as a trading post. None of the inhabitants complained. After all, this brought in more business (even if it also brought strange people from far-off lands) and the tower itself didn't do much, other than be the strangest thing to ever happen to anyone living near it.

But then the troubles started. One day a cloud appeared, seemingly from the top of the tower. It had a sickly green shade to it, and the rain that fell from it was acidic enough to damage the nearby houses. One kid almost lost an eye. People shrugged it off at first. But then strange creatures were found on the beaches near the place where the Tower pierced the rocky promontory and where its lower levels sunk into the waters of the bay. Pale beings, already dead upon discovery, with strange mechanical elements fused with their flesh. Soon people started disappearing. A ship sunk as it was just leaving the harbor. People started to become suspicious.

A few brave souls approached the only visible entrance to the Keystone Tower - located high up on the rocks of the promontory. Fewer still managed to actually make their way in. Only a handful came back, telling stories of strange doorways to other worlds and monstrous creatures beyond the ken of mortal men.

Finally, an unknown party of five heroes appeared in Val, battled their way up the levels of Keystone Tower and claimed it for their new headquarters. They became known as the Fist of Five and for a very long time were much beloved by the townsfolk. Their leader - Aethera - sometimes presided over local disputes, bestowing her wisdom and kindness upon the people in equal measures. She helped cure the children of diseases, alleviated the suffering of the elderly and even used the first couple of rooms on the first level of the tower as an open library where the less fortunate street urchins were welcome to learn about the world.

### Entrance to Val

When our adventuring party makes its way into Val, after the encounter with the Phantom, they will first notice the steep cliffs of the valley, heavily forested, and the saltwater river passing through it. They may encounter a small group of lumberjacks cutting down a nearby redwood. The more druid-minded party members may object. The point of this encounter is to show that the people of Val have fresh memories of the Oath-Breaker and his infamous deeds. Many have lost loved ones to his blade. The party should notice the people giving him the evil eye, and by proxy - giving it to the party.

Soon afterwards the actual city should come into view, with the distant shape of Keystone Tower visible against the background of the blue seas. The moment it does, its name makes itself known to the minds of your party.

### First Impression of Val

_The sounds of city life begin to make their way into your ears. The salty smell of the sea enters your nostrils and the feel beneath your feet is that of rough cobblestones. familiar hustle and bustle of a market day seems omnipresent. You see members of all races and many, many professions trying to trade, swindle and chat the day away._

_You look around at the buildings and see that most of them are made from driftwood, beautifully smooth and whitened by long-term exposure to the briny waters of the bay. Some of it even seems to have come from larger ships that must have met an unfortunate end in some untrustworthy whirlpool. The sun is high up in the air and its warmth kisses your skin just so. The air is fresh, the wind gentle._

_In the distance you see a couple points of interest. There's the ever-busy harbor, located at the feet of the cliffs upon which the Keystone Tower's upper portion is visible. There's also smoke coming from a building closer to you, perhaps a smithy or a workshop of some sort. Finally, closest to you on your left, you can see a strange building, seemingly a tavern, with a large patio area where patrons partake in drinking, shielded from the sun by large swaths of cloth, gently swaying in the breeze, possibly from older sails. There's also an inner section to this tavern, but upon the roof there's a strange, spiral-like structure made from some darker looking material, almost like a giant black sea-shell or perhaps a gargantuan hornet's nest..._

On a successful perception check, the part may also notice small noises and movement coming from a nearby alley. Upon inspecting, they will find that Val is also overrun by its own breed of city animals, namely the cat-shark hybrids often referred to as _carchs_ or _sharcats_. Playing with them and befriending them is a way of foreshadowing a similar interaction later on with pet-mimics.
</div>

<img src='https://static1.squarespace.com/static/535adf45e4b0cd207ffc69c5/t/54149658e4b0cd5126c218d5/1410635354105/
' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:330px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Brynn Metheney</div>

###### _Sharcat. Art by [Brynn Metheney](https://www.brynnart.com/shark-cats-portraits-of-terror)_

The next section introduces you to the potential interactions at different points of interest in the Val.

### The Friendly Shadow

First of the 3 pre-set points of interest is a seaside tavern with a certain duality to its nature. On the outside patio a mer-goblin by the name of _Friendly_ is in charge of serving drinks and selling trinkets to superstitious sailors and other curious visitors.

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Given the presence of Keystone Tower, the Val has attracted a number of arcane practitioners, tinkers and scientists as well as other strange beings, seemingly from different worlds. Friendly is just such a creature. His skin has a blue-ish tint to it, with a pattern of lighter stripes almost as if his specie evolved to be camouflaged by the patterns of light and darkness created by the waves above shallow waters. On both sides of his neck you can see a set of red gills, opening up every now and then with an audible gasp as his lungs process the oxygen from the air. Despite this seeming discomfort, Friendly stays true to his name and welcomes your party into his establishment. _Partially_ his.

The other half of the Friendly Shadow tavern is owned and ruled by Heshti. If your adventuring party is in need of more substantial sustenance, they need to make their way inside the actual building, its interior steeped in a strange shadow. A number of patrons can be seen sitting further inside, ostentatiously enjoying their deliciously smelling meals. However, before the party can take a seat, they must pass the kitchen bar, behind which Heshti's beautiful face can barely be made out, primarily because of the white hair framing her pale drow face...

<img src='https://1eu.funnyjunk.com/pictures/Character_70fe7a_5850441.jpg
' style='position:inline;top:150px;left:300px;right:300px;width:280px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Jacob Probelski, photo by Havenlust.</div>

######  _Heshti. Art by [Jacob Probelski](https://www.brynnart.com/shark-cats-portraits-of-terror)_

Although it's not immediately apparent (both due to the shadows and her attitude) Heshti is actually a drider - a half-drow, half-giant-spider. Unlike most driders, she maintains her own mind and is not dangerous, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. The strange spiral structure on top of the Friendly Shadow tavern is actually her spider nest. Players should only be able to make out her true nature on a very successful perception check.

Her superficial manner is that of an absolutely delightful flirt. DMs, have fun flirting with your players' characters.

Upon first interaction Heshti will immediately start a conversation with whomever she considers the most attractive member of the party (and her tastes may be rather exotic). She will be affable, with a slightly raspy voice, and offer the party a repast. If they accept, a beautifully prepared avocado-and-shellfish snack will lower itself down from the shadows surrounding Heshti, on a silvery thread of spider web. Heshti is a master-plater, and her presentation is flawless both in terms of food and her own beauty...

###### _Heshti's Gourmet Aristry. Photo by [Havenlust](https://www.scoopnest.com/s/Havenlust/)_

The purpose of Hesthi and Friendly is to:
* showcase that Val is filled with beings from many different places, often filling unusual roles, partially due to the presence and influence of Keystone Tower
* give the party a chance to gain more information about the tower and the Fist of Five
* give the DM a chance to stretch those role-playing muscles, use their goblin voice and embody a _very_ flirty drider lady.

On top of that, the Mergoblin and the Drider lady will have entirely different reactions to seeing the bound form of the Oath-Breaker. On a good perception / insight check the party may notice Friendly make an unfamiliar gesture towards the paladin. The gesture will seem a little shameful, as if somehow done against Friendly's better judgment. On a good history check or perhaps a nautical background, your party may recognize the gesture, which consists of placing one's fist to one shoulder, then the other and then opening the fist into a palm near one's mouth, as a way of wishing each other good luck, common among sailors. The gesture is meant to symbolize the freedom of breath, and serve as a superstitious way to protect oneself (or another) from the fate of drowning in the sea.

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Heshti, on the other hand, will audibly hiss at the sight of the Oath-Breaker. She will also try to tempt the party into giving her 5 minutes alone with him, as they look away. If pushed, she will explain that there was a street-urchin who sometimes came to her for leftover food at the end of the evening, whom she's grown rather attached to. Due to her physical form she is unable to leave the tavern often, and she was hoping to save this rare visitor from life on the streets. Sadly, the child was among the ones who lost their lives to the Oath-Breaker's killing spree. Or so she believes.

If the party errs on the immoral side, Heshti will sting the Oath-Breaker with excruciatingly painful venom, but won't permanently harm him. This will not seem to have given her the satisfaction she had hoped for.

Friendly, if pressed about the gesture, will explain that the Oath-Breaker and Aethera once healed one of his children (who can be seen behind the Mergoblin's drink bar, making all sorts of troubles for her father). The little critter was playing in the waters near the Keystone Tower when another one of those acid rain bouts happened. Were it not for the intervention, she would have lost her eyesight.

Finally, the Mergoblin will offer to sell some of his wares to the adventuring party. Two items will be of particular interest to the party:

1. A set of druid-crafted underwater breathing masks made from seaweed.
2. A peculiar light source made from a piece of driftwood, emitting a soft glow from a drop of water suspended above the wooden shaft by arcane means.

<img src='https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/a6c694c8-f763-4327-bea3-d394c60288e2/d2r9k81-7cb6b6ee-edb1-4d06-a130-76e2c477e083.jpg/v1/fill/w_751,h_1063,q_70,strp/vela_congelada_by_donjebus_d2r9k81-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTQ0OSIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2E2YzY5NGM4LWY3NjMtNDMyNy1iZWEzLWQzOTRjNjAyODhlMlwvZDJyOWs4MS03Y2I2YjZlZS1lZGIxLTRkMDYtYTEzMC03NmUyYzQ3N2UwODMuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTEwMjQifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.wjLXN10u0DxT89mAhSzAC7W2l7mW6q7Ygy4aiA2DQuE
' style='position:inline;top:150px;left:300px;right:300px;width:310px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by DonJebus</div>

###### _Water Candle. Art by [DonJebus](https://www.deviantart.com/donjebus)_
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<div class='descriptive'>

### Water Candles

On a successful check, the party may learn that such **driftwood candles** are a specialty export of Val, much valued by arcane practitioners and artists, due to the fact that their soft glow does not damage fragile old parchments and canvasses. In order to activate them a keyword has to be spoken, usually relating to life at see, common sources of light or the name of the vessel from which the driftwood originated, e.g. _lighthouse_, _breeze_ or _caravel_.
</div>

Needless to say, if the party chooses to purchase them, these items may prove useful later.

### Blacksmith from Aethera's Tribe

The second point of interest in Val is the smithing district, located closer to the sea. Depending on how much information about the Fist of Five the party currently posses, they may make the connection that one of the blacksmith's, with her own little stall, resembles some of the descriptions they've heard of Aethera so far.

Specifically this blacksmith, whilst clearly a half-orc female, seems to have more than just human and orcish blood flowing through her veins. Her skin seems more gray than green and her eyes are piercing blue. Her hair is jet-black, undercut on one side and braided on the other. Her ears are more pointed and elongated than one would expect.

On z successful nature or history checks the party may recognize this to be signs of a 1/4 orc and 1/4 elven lineage. This blacksmith, much like most members of Aethera's original tribe, is the progeny of a half-orc and a half-elf. There may even be some eladrin blood in there.

The purpose of this character is to reveal more backstory about the Fist of Five, particularly Aethera, and possibly allow the party to purchase any items they might need before heading towards the dungeon that is Keystone Tower. Her name is Enoch, and her temparament leaves something to be desired... here are two snippets from the possible conversation your party may have with her:

### Conversations with Enoch

**Conversation 1 | Aethera discovers her gifts**

_- I was older than her. She was always a gifted child. Fragile, but talented. Had a good ear for the many ways in which nature speaks to our tribes. A green thumb when it came to the mushroom farms. But her gift only truly awoke when our settlement got raided by a rival tribe. She was tending to the fungi when they rode through, cutting down people she loved right in front of her eyes. Something broke in her, some part of her died in that moment and the divine magic of mother nature flowed freely through her small body. Every attacker in sight, along with every cut-down member of our tribe, was immediately surrounded by a cloud of little fungal spores that quickly took root in what remained of their bodies and minds._
</div>

\pagebreakNum

_They served the tribe after that, helped rebuild what had been destroyed, until their decomposing bodies could no longer hold themselves together. Some thought it was wrong. But it was natural and it helped, when we needed help the most._

_I only respected her more after that. Especially how she dealt with seeing her dead loved ones walk again, by the power of her very own gifts._

**Conversation 2 | Enoch runs out of patience**

As the half-orc's stamina for conversation begins to run out, the frequency of her hammer meeting the  anvil becomes higher. Near the end almost every word is surrounded by the loud bang of metal on metal.

_- I spend my days... BOOM ... hitting things ... BOOM ... hard ... BOOM ... until they are good._

She takes a moment to wipe the sweat of her brow, her sinewy muscles glistening with the exertion.

_- Now ... I have answered your questions... BOOM ... so are you ... BOOM ... good ... BOOM ... or do you ... BOOM ... need ... BOOM ... hitting?_
</div>

### the Harbor

Finally, the third and last point of interest in Val is the harbor itself. If any of your adventurers has a nautical background (e.g. a swashbuckler rogue), they might be interested in talking to the dock-hands and the sailors. After all, their gossip is second to none. Such a character should get advantages on their rolls within the area.

The purpose of the harbor is twofold:

* to give your characters another opportunity to gain more information about the Fist of Five and the Keystone Tower, particularly with regards to a second, **hidden entrance**, which can be found beneath the water's surface, where the waves crash hard against the rocky cliffs of the promontory pierced by the tower.
* to potentially plant a **double-agent** in your party, in the form of an NPC claiming that Aethera has recently invited a number of people into the tower but never let anyone out and now the entrance is closed. Among those taken is a family member of this NPC.

This NPC should not be revealed as anything other than well-meaning (and capable of taking care of themselves in a scrap). If the party agrees to have them tag along - great, if not - it only disables a subplot. The true nature of this double-agent would only be revealed near the end of the adventure. If you're curious, you can jump ahead, but for now let's just say that their proclaimed reason for wanting to join the party weren't entirely untruthful.

As an alternative, you may also consider one of your party members becoming this unknowing double-agent, which is what happened during my play-test, due to the fact that one of the characters was a trickstery-domain cleric of a mysterious goddess known as the Mask. For more information on how that scenario can play out, consider jumping to pages 28-29, where the origin of the double-agent are revealed through a full backstory synopsis.

#### the Drunken Mermaid

The only other possible encounter near the Harbor is a beached mermaid, whose seemingly lifeless body can be found with a good perception check on a nearby shore.

<img src='https://78.media.tumblr.com/76e56328ebbd5cba08a997fe12beec5c/tumblr_mwtm9eagdu1siuzulo1_1280.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:350px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Joel Harlow</div>

###### _Drunken Mermaid. Artwork by the amazing [Joel Harlow](https://morphologyfx.com)_

This particular mermaid is less of your usual Disney princess and more of a "I'll drink any sailor under the table and then eat the table" type of gal. She should appear dead at first, only violently waking to life, desperately gasping for water upon someone doing a medicine check on her. She will try to make her way back to the sea, if the party assists her or interrogates her, she may be persuaded to reveal that:

* she's seen strange shapes moving in the waters surrounding the place where the Keystone Tower pierces the promontory and where a section of it is submerged.

\pagebreakNum

* she sometimes spoke with one of the members of the Fist of Five - a **simic hybrid rogue by the name of Finn** (see Ravnica setting), who was always very nice to her. Once, when drunk, he revealed to her that he's got a **private entrance to the first layer of Keystone Tower**, custom-made just for him, given his aquatic nature. He was so drunk that the next day he did not remember revealing this information. The mermaid will not espouse more details of what transpired that night, for a lady never tells.

Upon parting, the mermaid may share a vital piece of advice with the party, pertaining to how she found herself stranded on the beach with the worst hangover of her life - _never drink with the sea dwarves_.

## Keystone Tower

### Entrance

The mysterious tower is the heart of this adventure. But how are the players meant to make their way inside?

In order not to railroad our players too much, there are 2 possibilites:
1. Main entrance, known to all citizens of Val, located at the end of the rocky steps carved into the promontory, from which the main part of the Keystone Tower protrudes. It does not seem to be open and there's a small mob of people outside.
2. Secondary, secret entrance through the water, custom-made for the aquatic simic hybrid member of the Fist of Five, by the name of Finn. It is the stealthier but more dangerous option, requiring both a way to breathe under water and potentially an encounter with marine monsters.

#### Finn's Backdoor

If the party persuaded the mermaid to reveal its existence and either possess their own means of underwater travel or have purchased the druid-crafted items from Friendly, they will have an option of avoiding the mob outside of the main entrance.

Make the party perform stealth checks as they swim and don't be afraid to throw a shark at them. Perhaps mention an even bigger shape slowly moving in the further distance. The sea can be a scary place, especially next to a strange tower with a tendency to open doorways to other worlds.

Depending on how much information the party gained from the mermaid and how good they were at following her directions, the actual entrance can be found near where the tower pierces the promontory and goes deeper into the coastal waters. However, Aethera is not fool and it is currently guarded by strange, plant-like monsters.

These flowers have been given a humanoid form and a thirst for slowly decomposing flesh. An effect of strange druidic experiments with water lilies, they make perfectly patient guards, never straying far from the secret entrance.

In combat, their main strategy is to grapple the heroes and remove their underwater-breathing apparatus, hoping for the victim to drown and leave them to their slow feasts.

<img src='https://66.media.tumblr.com/2cb66db5143b17d353cbbb9c29785b8d/tumblr_pd41useLQu1s5611fo1_1280.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:350px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Botond Harko</div>

###### _Deadly Flowers. Artwork by the amazing [Botond Harko](https://www.deviantart.com/harkobotond)_

Once the heroes defeat them (or perhaps expertly stealth their way around the monsters), an underwater tunnel can be found, twisting and turning in the darkness for a good while, seemingly leading deeper into the recesses of Keystone Tower.

However, the deeper the party dives, the stranger the surrounding life forms. Eerie, deep-water angler fish may be found, slithering their way around the party. Rare, pale fish without eyes may be noticed. Finally, a strange force seems to pull the party members as if something had a grip on their center of gravity and the heroes get thrust violently through an underwater portal into the first level of Keystone Tower.

#### the Mob at the Main Entrance

The more obvious way to the tower leads through the rocky stairs carved in the cliffs of the promontory. Atop the rocks, where the spire's upper section emerges from the rocks at a slight angle, the main doorway can be found. Now that the party's made its way closer towards the structure, we can give them a more detailed description of its exterior.

### the Tower Up Close
_The climb up the crooked steps leaves you breathless. The ache in your limbs sets in, only made worse by the cold wind and the biting smell of salt in the air. The waves crush mercilessly into the cliffs below. But then you see it. The miraculous tower..._
</div>

\pagebreakNum

_The setting sun, reflected by its metallic surface, gives it a ruddy tint. It doesn't look like any man-made structure you've ever seen. Though seemingly made of some sort of alloy, it's covered in ridges and gentle, natural-seeming curves._

For the actual players, a useful analogy would be the inside of a lair in the movie Aliens.

_Above you, the clouds coil and part around the tower's tip. Sections of it seem to move and shift, slowly revolving around the main spire. Here and there it bends, becomes temporarily concave, its surface bending a little, making the metal look like some sort of reptilian skin, pulled taunt by some centrifugal force._

The point of these descriptions is to smudge the line between the natural and mechanical, the arcane and the technological, a lifeless building and a living organism.

_There are people forming a crowd around its base. Something tells you this is the kind of mob that only needs a minor excuse to lash out. People seem tense. There's anger here, without a way to be released. Yet._

</div>

The crowd is mostly the people who have had their loved ones, their families and friends invited into the tower by Aethera but never released. It wasn't entirely uncommon for the people of Val to come and go out the initial chambers of Keystone. This is where Aethera would preside over local disputes and advise the people on important decisions. The adjacent rooms also served as an open library and a sort of makeshift school for the less fortunate children of Val.

However, after the Oath-Breaker massacred a number of the citizens, the trust that Val placed in its heroes was severely diminished. In their heart of hearts, many people envied the Fist of Five and were glad to notice the seeds of their downfall. Other, better souls actually lost their loved ones in the bloodshed. The entrance to the tower is now barred by this strange mix of people. And perhaps also something not entirely human too ...

On a successful perception check your party may notice that for a split second a certain number of the people in the crowd's eyes seem to turn entirely crimson. Without pupils or irises. On a secondary glance the effect seems to disappear, but some part of your mind has been alerted to an unnerving presence.

What follows is a number of ways for the party to actually enter the tower:

* they may placate the crowd, ignore the strange crimson-eyed presence and simply make their way towards the entrance. It takes the form of a circular concavity, reminding the players of a camera shutter. Once the first member of the party investigates the door, they will find a number of colorful gems embedded in it. Upon interaction, an interface of sorts will form itself from the surface of the door.

<img src='http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VBcW3NMvpRA/U30IjDO5m4I/AAAAAAAAAUQ/3RGYl2XrgWI/s1600/Shor.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:350px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Linus Daniel Lindbalk </div>

###### _Keystone Tower. Artwork by [Linus Daniel Lindbalk](https://lindbalk.cgsociety.org/)_

* alternatively the may end up inciting the crowd to violence, in which case the mob may direct their aggression towards the party or on the tower (without effect). If they disperse, the party is free to interact with the main door, else they have to potentially find another entrance or wait. Remember that the party is still transporting the Oath-Breaker, so its easy to imagine the people channeling their anger at him - which the party can't allow in order to fulfill the conditions of the conflict.

* in order to add urgency, you may also have the entire crowd let the party pass to the door. If they seem to be taking too long to open the door (another portal) more and more members of the crowd will flash those familiar crimson eyes, eventually entirely dropping the facade of the angry mob, instead opting to reveal some of their true nature and fight the heroes. **The members of the crowd are in fact young oblexes**, a type of psychic gelatinous cube capable of taking on the form of other people (as well as their memories), with a strong desire to make their way back into Keystone, from which they were forcibly removed by the tower itself.

\pagebreakNum

I am knowingly ignoring the requirement of a gelatinous tendril linking the oblex with the rest of its gelatinous body, keeping that weakness as a feature of the elder oblex, to make things more balanced.

* finally, if all else fails, I considered the possibility of Aethera intervening by controlling some of the trees growing around the tower to uproot themselves, cast the travel-via-plants spell and effectively swallow the party members, teleporting them inside the tower. This is a last resort, but perhaps also a funny and memorable moment.

#### Keystone Interfaces

The mechanism of one or more metallic hands with polished bronze discs above them, perpendicular to the ground, will be a recurring way for the party to interact with the tower.

The first opportunity to do so is the single hand interface that appears from the main entrance when a character investigates the colorful gems embedded in the door. The moment the hero chooses to bring their own hand near the open, outstretched palm, a series of needles, reminiscent of a tattoo gun will pierce their hand, drawing a small amount of blood but causing no pain - perhaps because they are covered in some sort of analgesic or perhaps due to the psychic influence of the tower.

Once the gift of blood is given, the floating metallic disc forming a sort of screen becomes clear like a mirror (yet reflects nothing this time) and the entire party is pulled into a portal, transporting them to the first layer of Keystone Tower.

In the near future, similar interfaces will be found within the tower, often with more than 1 hand, requiring the cooperation between multiple party members. The basic idea is that the tower requires a part of you to activate its functionalities, either literal (like blood) or metaphorical (a memory, something physical symbolizing one's self etc.). Upon activation, the disc floating above the hand becomes clear and can sometimes show a clue regarding what was needed to activate it (and what will be needed to activate its neighbor).

I experimented with making the party members roll a charisma saving throw to see if they suffer any of the effects similar to travel to and from the Feywild, to add to the overall weirdness of the tower. On a fail, the party can either visibly age a couple of months (hair and nails grow longer) or suffer a mild case of memory loss.

From now on the party will be using the **two battlemaps** to navigate the environment, with a couple of theatre-of-the-mind locations, including a puzzle with an hour-glass to add time pressure.

\columnbreak
<div style='margin-top:200px;'></div>
<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/564x/86/dd/87/86dd8703f878f0530afb8051c01c6592.jpg' style='position:inline;top:205px;right:30px;width:350px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Concept by Nolan Whale, art by Unknown</div>

###### _Elder Oblex. Artwork from the Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes, I was unable to find the artist, but here's the [story behind it](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/235-meet-d-ds-new-scariest-monster-in-mordenkainens)_

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<div class='partpage-dmg'>

# Keystone Tower
### First Floor Map
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<div style='margin-top:80px;'></div>

</div>

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## First Floor

The first floor of the Keystone Tower - this is where you'll want to start the adventure if you only have a couple hours of play-time. If you're splitting the adventure into multiple sessions, this is the moment you'll move from theatre-of-the-mind combat and primarily social interactions to an experience focused more on exploration, mystery and puzzles, i.e. a dungeon crawl with a central mystery.

Below is a key for the map above, explaining what can happen in each of the rooms / corridors **marked by a number**.

### 1. Hall of Audience

The first and largest room on the first floor is reminiscent of a cathedral. There are pews and additional chairs set up for those rare occasions when the townsfolk of Val required a public forum and requested Aethera's wisdom, if not judgment. Should the party choose to inspect their surroundings they will find that although the floor resembles stone - it is actually made of some strange adaptive metal. E.g. it clangs when being knocked on. This is meant to highlight that the Keystone Tower is capable of mimicking various environments. The intention was probably to put the townsfolk more at ease when visiting.

At the other end of the hall a beautiful and vibrant display of greenery can be seen, framing a raised chair, the only sitting place facing the audience. You can deduce that this is where Aethera would sit when she presided over the gatherings. The beautiful display of plant-life features gigantic mushrooms. This foreshadows Aethera's aesthetic as a druid of the circle of spores.

The most important aspect of this room is another interface with the Keystone Tower, hidden behind the chair, partially obscured by the horticulture. On the map, it is marked with a red pentagram, to highlight its magical nature. It takes the form of a single outstretched metallic hand, with a corresponding disc above it.

If the party interacts with it (another set of needles taking blood painlessly from the user) both doors to the rooms on each side of the main hall will open. Alternatively the party's rogue can also open them through traditional means.

### 2. Sunday School

The party can either choose to explore the room to the left or right. If they start with the one to the right, they will find themselves in a small library, filled with little desks, illuminated by the soft, blue glow of more water candles (giving the party another opportunity to grab some).

There is also a chest, in which more books can be found, as well as a potion of levitation hidden among them. The books are mostly basic introductions to various subjects, although a wizard may also find an interesting scroll or two.

Another important feature of this room are the windows. Through them, the heroes may look into landscapes that should not be visible from within the tower, given its presumed physical location.

They may show a beautiful aurora borealis, shining over a night vista in the Feywild. Some ancient ruins of a city swallowed by a jungle forest. Maybe even a place where mysterious monasteries float through the air. The point of this is to show that **the Keystone Tower is an inter-planar wonder of arcane technology**.

There is also another keystone interface, which should require a slightly different form of sacrificing the self to activate. If a hero approaches it and tries to interact with it, his mind should be suddenly filled with the image of some sort of personal possession. If the hero places it on the outstretched metal palm, the interface will become activated, the palm will close into a fist and the object will disappear, only to reappear as an image visible through the linked metallic disc, instantly turning into what modern readers will recognize as a screen. The object will be lost, barring a deeper connection to the Keystone Tower later on and a great persuasion check.

If activated, the interface will reveal the presence of a trap, located at the 4th marker. If triggered before this, the trap takes the form of a set of sharp tendrils shooting from the walls, revealing once more that although the walls look like stone, they are not what they seem.

Finally, one of the large bookshelves that can be found within the room is actually a mimic, but a rather tame one. If a hero inspects the bookshelf, familiar fangs and a tongue do appear, perhaps even wrapping itself around the unsuspecting adventurer, but no harmful action will proceed. If the other heroes do harm to the bookshelf mimic, it will revert to its previous bookshelf form and try to look smaller, as well as rather hurt. Emotionally. On a successful animal-handling check, the party may be able to tempt the mimic to interact with them again, pet it or feed it and gain an unlikely follower, in a similar vein to Terry Pratchett's famous Luggage.

### Shelfie and Chestie

In rooms 2 and 3, the party may find themselves befriending a pair of domesticated mimics, taking the forms of a tall bookshelf and a treasure chest respectively. Here's how that initial interaction might look ...

_- I'd like to pick the look on that chest. After all we found a potion of levitation in the other one, I'm sure this one has something cool in it too_

_DM: Very well, you take out your lock-picking tools and carefully insert them into the lock at the front of the chest. You hear a strange, slurping sound, after which your lock-picks are ejected out of it. A bit of drool is visible, dripping from the keyhole. The chest promptly turns away from you on tiny pseudopod legs, making the lock face the wall behind it. It seems indignant._

If treated nicely, the mimics will follow the party around, occasionally signalling that they want more scratchies.
</div>

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### 3. the Vegetable Garden

If the party chooses to explore the room to their left, they will find a lush in-house garden, illuminated by a soft, natural light coming from windows above (even if its night time). There are giant, edible mushrooms and root vegetables of all sort.

More windows showing other worlds can be looked through, this time showing mostly sunny and pleasant places. On the working tables, some healing potions can be found.

The entrance to the next room (marker 9) has a couple of strange, deep-sea fish lying on the ground in a small puddle of water. They have been spiked and gutted. They appear to have been dropped by accident.

The room also contains Chestie, as described above.

### 4. the Trap

Fourth marker (with symbolic blood splatter) is where the trap revealing the nature of the stone walls as being a superficial simulacrum of the underlying tissue of the Keystone Tower is located. It can be disarmed only by interacting with the keystone interface in room #2, but it can also be noticed by a skilled rogue (and avoided).

### 5. the Druidcrafted Memoir

On the corridor to the left, the party will encounter a beautiful composition of deep-cave plants and underdark mushrooms. The presence of a trap and the intimate nature of this object is meant to signal that we are delving into parts of the tower that were more private.

To the untrained eye it would simply look like another pretty example of skilled gardening, but given a good nature check, it will reveal that here and there, under a leaf or perhaps a mushroom cap, there are single words or perhaps a sentence, seemingly naturally occurring in the flora. If a party member speaks druidic or sylvan, they will be able to decipher the emotions of deep sadness and unprocessed grief, of grim anger and perhaps an unwavering denial of reality.

They may also find a single entry that does not fit the theme and has clearly been cut into the plants with a knife. It takes the form of a single profane word, followed by a crude drawing of a fish. Unbeknownst to the party at this point, this has been placed here by Finn, the simic hybrid, who was known (e.g. as they've learned from the mermaid) to have had an irreverent sense of humor.

The party can choose to cut through or perhaps burn their way through this thicket and enter room nr 6.

### 6. Suspended Stairway

Is the entrance to the next level of the tower. More on that at the end of this section. 
### 7. the Secret Entrance

If the heroes enter the tower via the underwater portal, they will emerge here, in a cave-like room, with some stinky barrels to one side and a large basin of freshwater, made from stone. Within it, the party may find the strange deep-water angler-fish, all dead due to the mismatch between the basin and their preferred environment, in terms of salinity.

Once they approach, a noise can be heard from room nr 8. It takes the form of strange, metallic clatter, as if pots and pans were being knocked together. It suggests some sort of busy, rushed commotion, coming from behind a closed wooden door. This door is made of driftwood, much like most of Val.

### 8. the Kitchen of Encouragement

Once entered or perhaps viewed through the keyhole, this room is revealed to be a well-stocked kitchen, with three large working tables and plenty of specialized cutlery. There's also another one of the strange windows showing other worlds, this one making it possible to view an urban landscape, which the heroes may or may not recognize as Ravnica.

The noise of work comes from two beings made entirely of metal, each with one huge eye in the middle of their polyhedron bodies. These are in fact modrons, the robotic creatures from the lawful plane of Mechanus. They seem to be in the middle of making dinner, and there's even a plate-sized portal, through which the ready meals are transported to ... somewhere.

**The point of this portal is to give the players a choice of potentially poisoning Aethera**, who is the intended recipient of those meals. Players can either find a vial of poison in the vegetable garden or may already have some on them. The interesting bit is that they are in reality risking poisoning some of the townsfolk of Val who have been imprisoned by her, which the heroes will only learn a while later.

<img src='https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/c/ca/Modron-5e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160919013425' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:360px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Julie Dillon, for Paizo Publishing</div>

###### _Modrons. Artwork by [Julie Dillon](https://www.juliedillonart.com/)_

### the Superintendent and the Encourager-9000

The kitchen is effectively the home of two unwilling modron cooks. Upon the party entering the room by force, one of them will turn around, look at the giant butchering knife in one hand and the gutted body of a deep-sea eel in the other and then promptly drop the knife and attempt to hit the intruders with the fish, with a leonine battle-cry.

_- Aaaaaaaaaaa!_ - bellowed the modron.

</div>

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Despite the fact that the eel can actually do 1D6 electric damage upon the unlikely event that the modron actually hits, the party should have no problem constraining the creature. Amidst the fight the other modron will stand idly by, with their hands crossed and as unamused an expression as a mechanical being can sport. It will also, in the most dry, robotic voice you can possibly muster, say things like:

_- Yes, you are doing **great**. Certainly continue along your current path of action. You shouldn't let failure discourage you **at all**._

This, in fact, is the unwilling Encourager-9000 model, and they exist for the sole purpose of providing half-hearted verbal support to anyone making any sort of attempt at anything in their presence. If constrained, the first modron will reveal himself to be ...

_- I am the SUPER! ... intendent. I am the sole bearer of the responsibility over the tower's culinary needs._

This comedy duo can give you basic information regarding Aethera locking the tower after taking in a number of people from Val, as well as the fact that the other members of the Fist of Five have not returned any of their dishes for washing in a while...
</div>

### 9. the Endless Resurrection

Finally, we get to the most interesting room on the first floor. Regardless of which side the party approaches this chamber from, the floors and walls will begin to resemble more faithfully the true nature of the Keystone Tower - an alien, organic-looking tangle of metal striations and ... roots?

The moment our heroes enter the room they begin to heal any damage they have sustained. On the floor, a hoard of religious symbols can be found. They belong mostly to gods of life but a couple darker symbols are also present.

There are 3 smaller water candles illuminating the room with a soft, eerie glow, as well as another shrub of greenery and fungi. Another keystone interface can be found to the right, near the corridor leading to room nr 6. The strange, metallic roots of the inner surface of the tower reveal its connection to this room's centerpiece...

... which is a large mechanical chamber, resembling an iron coffin, but with wires and other arcano-mechanical elements coming out of it. There's a large plate of thick glass making up a part of its lid, revealing a well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth-like humanoid, with only a single tusk of ivory protruding from the empty skull.

This is the body of the **4th member of the Fist of Five** - a loxodon barbarian by the name of Tusk. A symbol of the thunder-god he followed can still be seen around the skeleton's neck, like dog tags on a fallen soldier.

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### Afterlife of a Warrior

_Mere moments later the coffin-like contraption begins to thrum with the flow of some strange arcane current through its alien circuitry. You can see through the glass section of the lid that some energy is wrapping itself around the giant skeleton within. Even through the layer of metal you can feel its radiance as any of the small wounds still on your body begin to heal quicker and quicker..._

_And then you see it, the little strips of muscle weaving themselves around the loxodon warrior's bones, the unbelievably quick regeneration of tissue, then the skin, finally they shaggy gray fur reminiscent of some prehistoric beast. What was just dead bones moments ago, is now the naked form of a might warrior, held tight within the mechanism by thick, steel cuffs._

_In his eyes you see a mixture of terror and great, bottomless betrayal ..._

</div>

The party is left with a choice to attempt to destroy the machinery by force (to no avail unless a really good roll is made, in which case the divine radiant healing energy summoned here will dissipate, leaving the loxodon barbarian finally truly dead, with a parting look of thankfulness on his face and perhaps some minor blessing) or by tampering with the keystone interface (much easier, same result). They can also leave the creature be, in which case he remains locked in the cycle of forced resurrection, but may be saved depending on the final outcome of the adventure.

Any attempts at communicating through the thick glass and layers of metal should be fruitless.

### Leaving the first floor

At this point, the party should realize that there is more than they bargained for happening in this tower and that they can't simply drop off the Oath-Breaker, leave the tower, get their drink on & paint the town red.

Something has gone terribly wrong here. Depending on whether the Oath-Breaker has been freed from his bounds at this point (which is unlikely), he may reveal more information about how he himself made his way out of the tower. If you're curious about that, jump over to pages 28-29 for a full backstory synopsis.

In order to leave the first floor, the party has to find a way to climb (or, more likely, to fly) up to the set of spiral stairs suspended 20ft from the ceiling of room 6, which itself is 60ft high. No great obstacle for such an adventuring party, but it should serve to split the party a little and force one of them to be the first through a narrow hatch leading upwards, beyond which nothing can be seen. In fact, the darkness on the other side seems to be a rather permanent enchantment, resisting simple light spells to a large degree.

The first hero to poke their head in is in for a nasty surprise, involving vampirism and tentacles...

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## Second Floor

The moment a hero puts their head through the little hatch with nothing but pitch-black darkness beyond, they should make an extremely high DC dexterity saving throw. If they fail, their entire body is snatched up into the blackness, the only thing their companions will see is pale-white tentacles and nearly translucent, clawed hands, snatching their friend.

If the party is more careful and tries to cast light spells into the room above, they will only catch glimpses of a 50ft tall, circular room. All they can tell is that its walls are lined with bookshelves and that there are also some glass panels erected from the floor, with something inside them. The room resists arcane and divine light and darkvision is also less effective. The moment any light spell - **except for water candles** - enters this room, the old tomes that line the walls begin to shrivel and the faint ink begins to fade.

This effect should be immediately visible to the party, so that they realize they have to make a choice between higher visibility (and higher chance of saving their companion) and losing the chance to gain knowledge from the tomes. Additionally, a strong light spell (such as daylight or moonbeam) will reveal that the 2 glass panels standing 10ft tall, parallel to each other at opposing sides of the hatch, actually contain even more ancient writings. They take the form of letters burnt into stretched patches of human skin, a macabre relic from a vampiric kingdom of old.

### Finn the Vampire
The pale, tentacled foe that snatched up their friend is in actuality Finn, the simic hybrid rogue, a **member of the Fist of Five**. Once the party make their way into the room, they may notice this newly-made vampire high up near the ceiling, defying gravity in part due to his vampiric powers and in part due to his aerial simic adaptations (manta glide).

The unlucky hero being grappled and/or restrained by Finn will be able to look into the eyes of the blood-sucker, but in them (with a good insight check) they should only see the rabid hunger and fight-or-flight instinct of a cornered animal.

One of the vampire's abilities is charming a person, which Finn will attempt to do to the person in his tentacles. Failing that, he will attempt a necrotic bite to sate his hunger. There is no peaceful resolution to this conflict, the party has to find a way to slay him.

Once they take care of Finn, preferably with the knowledge that his intentions weren't entirely his own, the party can scan the rest of the room. The ancient tomes may contain scrolls of great value to your arcane casters. However, the real knowledge comes from the writing burnt into the cured skins of humanoid beings, preserved in the glass, as well as a dead, staked vampire, which can be found in a small hidden alcove behind one of the bookshelves.

The other, staked vampire is ex-sanguinated to a point where only draining one or two humans would revive her, therefore it shouldn't be a real option to have a conversation with her. However, the stake that's pinning her to the wall is made from the same material that was earlier revealed to be the more natural form of the Keystone Tower's floors and walls, suggesting that whoever did this had mastery over the tower.

<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ba/5f/1d/ba5f1de50e0e38b9bd297533a297c683.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:360px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Florence Jia Hao</div>

###### _The Simic Hybrid Vampire. Artwork by [Florence Jia Hao](http://terpica.pw/ArtStation-Florence-Jia-Hao-Bestiary-in-2019-t-Alien-art.html)_

The writings on the skin, depending on how much light the party brought into the room, should reveal an ancient vampiric culture's investigation into the intersection of life's blood and the immortal soul, the rituals needed to sire a new vampire, as well as a mention of a disease of the soul called **pyromortis**. The party may at this point make the connection to the original encounter with the Firesoul Phantom, but no further details should be revealed.

By this point, our heroes know that they have personally met 3 members of the Fist of Five. Depending on whether the Oath-Breaker is freed or no longer gagged, he should show further repulsion and sadness at the fate of his other former companion, however he ought to reveal no knowledge of what happened to Finn.

The entrance to the next floor should take the form of a hidden chute, which can be found in the little alcove with the staked vampire. Party members can enter it and slide down into the next chamber. However, as they slide, the gravity should change direction multiple times, leaving the party rather confused. This is another manifestation of the tower's reality-bending aspects.

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## Third Floor

The party gets forcibly thrown into the chamber, they land on what can only be described as a hoarder's heaven. It's another circular room, filled to the brim with bric-a-brac so that the floor cannot be seen. There are weapons, smithing tools, ingots, pieces of art, discarded plants, jewelry, furniture. Literally every item the mind can imagine, both rare and entirely commonplace.

The walls are made of glass and beyond them, an underwater vista can be seen. Here and there a piece of seaweed has attached itself to the other side. Strange, deep-sea fish can be seen, reminiscent of the ones used by the two modrons to make dinner. However these seem even more alien in their anatomy. A high perception check may even yield a large, dark shape ominously swimming in the far distance. After a couple moments of commotion, a shadow in the shape of a humanoid figure will be seen on the other side, too far to make out any details, but it looks as if there was smoke coming out of its form, or perhaps as if bits and pieces were flaking off. This is to remind the party of the phantom, but in reality it is a humanoid slave to the aboleth swimming further in. The smoke-like effect is actually a consequence of the **highly acidic** properties of this liquid, which the party will soon experience.

In the middle of the room there's a large, stone basin filled with perfectly still water. In its center, a single, wizened white tree can be seen, with not a single leaf on its branches.

Finally, at the other end of the room, a set of stone stairs emerges from the sea of junk, leading to a raised platform with the familiar keystone interface, this time with 5 open hands of metal, awaiting someone to interact with them. There are no visible exits.

### The Tree of Truth

If the party chooses to investigate the strange, bone-white tree in the middle of the raised pool of water, they should make a charisma saving throw (CHA-10). If any of the party members makes, it that hero should be able to resist the illusion magic hiding the tree's true form and be able to point it out to the other adventurers. Alternatively, the tree can choose to reveal its true form at will.

If the party manages to see through the fae magic, they will see a very different entity. Although vaguely tree-shaped, it will actually consists of a bunch of dessicated corpses, intertwined and molded together. Strange, milky veins of pulsing tissue are wrapped all over the frame of this nightmarish form. 
In the middle of this "tree", where a hollow might normally be found, there's a single, red eye, tracing the movements of the party. If they move closer, it will begin a conversation, its broken voice coming through the cracked, dry lips of the dead humanoid body forming one of its top branches.

### The Pact of Honesty

_... the moment you realize the strange "tree"'s true nature, even before you can truly take in the abject horror of its real visage, a voice emerges from one of the dried up husks making up its twisted, unnatural form._

_The milky veins of tissue that spread across most of its surface, like a perverted cobweb, begin to pulsate, somehow coercing the dead flesh into familiar motions. It sucks the air into its lungs for what seems like the first time in an era. Its red eye focuses on you in one sudden movement. Then it beings to speak._

_- ... what questions bring you to my humble realm?_

_Its voice is dust and sickness. Yet something tells you that for the first time in your life you have a chance to get the answers you've been seeking all your life. At the same time an older, wiser part of your mind knows that although this eldritch being may not lie, no good will come from the truths it speaks_.

</div>

<img src='https://i.pinimg.com/originals/61/db/55/61db55f8bdb73bd83950bbca026985db.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:330px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Riccardo Federici</div>

###### _The Archfey Tree of Truth. Artwork by [Riccardo Federici](https://www.instagram.com/riccardo_federici_art/?hl=pl)_

The point of this being is to have a chance to reveal truths about your player's characters, give them answers they may seek (both about themselves and about the current adventure). Each party member will get one question, after the Tree reveals that it can only answer truthfully, if the price is paid.

And the price is low, at least on the surface...

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A memory of a loved one, an object of some sentimental value, the location of a safe place, a lock of hair. A drop of blood. The ability to feel a specific emotion or accept gifts from strangers. **An earned name**. These should be things whose loss is only felt later, in proper dramatic moments, that can be tailored to your campaign. Only one of the items on this list of possible prices has bearing on this adventure - the sacrifice of one's earned name.

The reason for this is that our adventuring party is unknowingly being led to their deaths. The Tree of Truth, though indeed unable to lie, is not required to tell the whole truth and it is burning with malice and a desire to bring great pain and misfortune upon others. It's real goal is to have the party spend precious _time_ asking their questions.

What the party isn't aware of (barring a high perception check somewhere in the middle of the conversations with the Tree) is that the glass walls are beginning to crack under the unimaginable pressure of the acidic see. Cracks have begun to appear (the Tree may attempt its illusion magic again to conceal them) and the acid is slowly pouring into the room, causing the accumulated junk covering the floor to sizzle and go up in smoke.

The room will become uninhabitable soon and even if the party manages to get sufficiently high up from the burning floors, the smoke itself also has poisonous properties. **This is the moment you bust out your hourglass** to put some time pressure on the party to find an exit.

### the Puzzle

The adventurers may be tempted to seek another hatch, perhaps high up or concealed under the debris below, currently increasingly submerged in the burning liquid.

However, the actually answer lies within the keystone interface with 3-5 open hands, awaiting activation. The moment a hero makes his or her way up to the platform with the interface, the words of the puzzle will appear on the corresponding screens, each in a different language, related to the party members.

It is important to adjust the number of open hands, as the solution to the riddle relies on the characteristics of your party.

>##### The Puzzle of What is Earned
> “Most are given one. Others more. Those of true value are earned, and those often say the most. Give me what you earned and I will give you a way through. But do not leave yourself with me for long as you may still need yourself further down the road. Do not lose yourself either. What would you be without yourself?”

The answer to the riddle is a name. The party members are expected to bring objects symbolizing their earned nicknames, monikers or honorary titles to the outstretched hands of the interface.

The moment the first person figures it out, the disc-screen above that hand will show the object (perhaps metaphorical) that embodies the earned or given name.

You will be surprised how often adventurers earn nicknames, have pet-names for each other or for their group. Even their first names often have meanings. You can take the example of Critical Role and in the Vox Machina party you have Pike (a type of fish or a weapon), Grog Strongjaw (body part or bone) and two other party members with strong ties to Whitestone (any white stone will do). If you're running this adventure as a one shot, don't be afraid to gently steer your players towards nicknames for each other, given the fact that they are intended to be an already formed party when they start.

In my test-run of this adventure, one of the heroes was a gnome wizard called Yospip Longnose Bramfoodle, and the moment he brought his face close to the interface, one of the hands closed into a fist, the disc became clear and showed an image of a nose.

For every 2-3 minutes that the party takes to figure it out, they should take an increasing amount of d6 of acid damage. The hoard of junk at their feet is meant to make sure that the objects corresponding to their name (in some symbolic fashion) can be found within. Don't be afraid to make the first activation accidental to give the party a clue.

Alternatively, if your party truly has no meaningful names, you can use the objects related to the Fist of the Five. The party should already know the names of 3 of the 5 members:

* the Oath-Breaker by the name of Leaf, who can also assist the party in solving this riddle, although he was never in this room (the Tower has many, many rooms, not all of them sequential).
* the loxodon barbarian known as Tusk. Any piece of ivory jewelry will do.
* the simic hybrid by the name of Fin(n). There's plenty of acid-resistant fish on the other side of the glass. Or perhaps a holy symbol of a nautical goddess among the junk.

Once the riddle is solved and the interface fully activated, another portal will appear, taking the party to the final floor of Keystone Tower.

A perceptive party member may make the connection between no one in Val being able to recall the name of the 5th member of the Fist of Five, the original encounter with him (which some of the party members may have forgotten, unless they made the saving throw) and the fact that the Tree asked for memories and names in return for its answers. This is one possible interpretation of the connection between the Tree and the Firesoul Phantom.

However, one would not be far from the truth if they hypothesized that the mention of **pyromortis** found on the second floor and the unpredictable nature of soul magic could also lead to a person being literally _burned from existence_, along with their no-longer immortal essence, their name and the very memories of their life ...

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<div class='partpage-dmg'>

# Keystone Tower
### Final Floor Map
\columnbreak
<div style='margin-top:80px;'></div>

</div>

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## Last Floor

This is the final stage of the adventure, the place where final decisions will be made. This is where the party can confront Aethera, have the last encounter with the Firesoul Phantom and understand many of the mysteries of the Keystone Tower.

### 1. Entrance

Once more, the heroes are forcibly thrust out of the portal into an unfamiliar setting. The walls and floors show the true tissue of the tower, with organic-looking veins of brownish metal wrapping around themselves in twists and coils. For the players, this may look like the Space Jockey ship from the movie Alien. It is clearly technological (or arcane) but also somehow strangely biological.

On both sides of the first corridor (unmarked) there are the previously encountered windows into other planes, although this time they do not resemble normal, architectural forms - instead being simple, rounded openings in the walls, covered not with glass but a translucent, bending film of some sort. If pressed, it will have some give, but it will also distort the image on the other side and go entirely black if punctured.

The windows should only show 3 planes:

* A scorched landscape of fire, with sporadically appearing maelstroms of flame, immolating everything in their path. This is the elemental plane of fire.
* A plane consisting of slowly moving, concentrical metal rings, reminiscent of an orrery. It is hard to tell how far away those rings are, given a lack of anything to compare the distance to. It appears to be mechanical in nature, with paradoxical architecture reminding us of an Escher painting. On a good perception roll, small beings can be seen crawling over the rings. These are various types of modrons.  This is the plane of Mechanus.
* A barren land where ashes rain from the skies, but there is very little light coming through the black, rolling clouds covering the skies. The ground is marshy, with strange mechanical contraptions digging their claws into the earth, slowly excavating and swallowing corpses buried within. This is Phyrexia.

### 2. The Chamber of the Mind

If the party chooses to investigate the room on the left first, they will find a large cavernous chamber with 2 of the familiar keystone interfaces, two sets of iron racks (one still with a being in it, the other empty), multiple dead bodies and a set of strange spheres (crimson red or translucent) suspended in mid-air.

The two interfaces are clearly connected to a set of the iron racks each, through the organic-looking tubes of metal lining the ground. If a party member interacts with either of the interfaces, a current of electricity will run through the tubes activating the racks, effectively shocking the beings held within them.

The only occupied set of racks has a dead mind-flayer in them, its head partially dissected, the tentacles pulled back by small hooked chains.

Once shocked by the electric current, the body still releases a psychic burst of energy, stunning and doing damage to anyone in a cone covering the other set of racks as well as the large set of double doors leading to the other, larger section of this map. **This is a potential trap that the party may set** for whoever should come through that door. The psychic burst doesn't make a sound, but the effect is visible by the naked eye.

On a successful religion check, the party may also sense that there's an undead element to the mind-flayer's corpse, as if it had been, at some point, reanimated through necromantic magic. This is in fact the place where the Oath-Breaker had been held by Aethera (in the second set of racks), in an effort to extract the memories of his half-brother's memories from the paladin's mind.

If the party has freed the Oath-Breaker (and suffered the consequences of breaking the first 2 conditions of the law-magical contract) he will at this point reveal the entire story to them. The entire, chronological telling of the plot behind this adventure is told in a separate section of this document, see the table of contents for the exact page.

### 3. The Red Star

Above recently deceased bodies of some of the townsfolk of Val, a large number of spheres seem suspended under the darkened ceiling, giving them the appearance of stars against the night's sky. There's one that's much larger than the others (10ft diameter) and it seems to glow with a rich, crimson tint. Others are much smaller, maybe a dozen of them do not possess the red coloration and instead seem translucent.

These are in truth glass containers, holding within them a number of young oblexes and a single elder one. The party may learn this by experiencing the mild effects of a memory intrusion by the psychic gellatinous entity (only the elder is strong enough to overcome the protective spells cast on the glass containers).

### Brains in a Vat

_You approach the western corner of the chamber, careful not to lose your footing in the tangle of wires and tubes beneath you. It's hard to walk quietly, but something in the back of your mind advises caution so you do your best to move stealthily. In front of you - there are dead bodies of the people of Val, above you - the strange spheres of crimson red._

_You take a moment to inspect the remains, there are no obvious signs of trauma, no clear cause of death. Your eyes get pulled back towards the spheres, particularly the biggest, reddest one seems to have an almost magnetic pull. You could swear, just for a second, that you could see some sort of internal movement within it. Seconds pass. Was that an outline of a face?_

At this point, the hero could be asked to make an INT15 saving throw. On a fail:

_It did seem like a face, a rough image of a visage painted in a darker shade of red, but surely it's just your mind playing tricks on you._

</div>

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_But then it hits you, a deluge of emotions not entirely your own - anger at being caged, a claustrophobic sort of feeling, inability to grow, to spread, to breathe. Almost like being locked with your own thoughts without an outlet for far too long. Like solitary confinement but somehow ... with more versions of yourself? It is strange and difficult to describe. But you all of a sudden know that you must break the glass. It's the only rational thing to do..._

</div>

If the NPC who is actually a young oblex is with the party, they can also initiate this encounter by breaking the glass sphere and releasing its family. The oblexes are not meant to be entirely evil and there's a possibility of a peaceful resolution, particularly if the party is open to communication through mind intrusions.

**However, if the Oath-Breaker is freed, the party will have to choose who to side with**. The main reason why the fallen paladin chose to break his oath was to prevent the oblexes from spreading. Whilst still on the rack, he noticed the young oblexes force their way through little imperfections in the currently empty glass cages and, knowing their true nature from previous adventures of the Fist of Five, was aware that they may infiltrate Val, kill its citizens and impersonate them, slowly growing the colony and eventually becoming a large scale threat.

The oblexes themselves, particularly the oblex NPC can argue that they were forcibly removed from their home in the Underdark and brought here against their will for Aethera's experiments. This is a very shades-of-grey choice, the oblexes may not be outright evil but they have in fact killed and assumed the identities of some of Val's citizens. Those were the people assumed to be killed by the Oath-Breaker, who has not, in fact killed innocents.

### 4. Divine Assistance

The other corridor has a marker in the shape of a knight in armor, symbolizing some form of divine assistance before the final show-down. Don't be afraid to beef your party up, especially if you have a divine caster, a paladin or a monk on the team. The fate of Keystone Tower may be of interest to both celestial and infernal parties, given its planeswalking abilities. Certain beings could aid the party in their efforts here.

In my play-test I had an aasimar paladin, formerly of the Boros legion, and the assistance took the form of Aurelia's feather laying on the ground. Upon being picked up, it would reveal a celestial word which, when spoken in a moment of dire need, would cause their sword to shoot a pillar of radiant fire at a nearby enemy. This weapon, when activated, would do as much damage as all the dice in that player's tray (percentile die counting as a D10). The side effect would be the arrival of the Firesoul Phantom to Aethera's aid, through the fire. This is merely one of the ways to re-introduce the Phantom into the final combat.

### 5. Intel from Above

The corridor slowly raises, leading to a small window into the second, larger chamber.

Assuming a good stealth check, this should allow the party to peer into the scene of the final confrontation. The windows is approximately 40ft above the floor, and could also be used as an entry point. It allows the person to view points of interest numbered 6-10, but not 11 and 12.

It can be used as a good vantage point for ranged fighters, at the cost of not having overview of the entire potential battlefield.

### 6. Ribbed Column

Both this and the little yellow circles near marker 7 are columns, with ridges spiralling around them, making it easy to climb them. The purpose for it is to make the main room more varied and to provide melee fighters with a way to climb and jump towards flying enemies, if they are properly positioned. It also provides cover.

### 7. The Hostages

Behind three smaller columns, closer to the other edge of the chamber, there is a number of townsfolk (still alive) chained to the ground. A good lock-picking and stealth check opens the possibility of freeing and escorting them back to safety through the 3rd, leftmost connection between the 2 large chambers.

If someone chose to poison the meals being prepared by the 2 modrons in the kitchens on the first floor, they will find out that these were made for the prisoners, not for Aethera. Depending on the poison, consequences should vary.

### 8. Plane of Fire Seeping In

The top left corner is dominated by an intrusion of the elemental plane of fire, with molten rock flowing into the chamber. Standing near it should require a CON10 save in order not to get burn damage. 
This is meant as another potential entry point for the Firesoul Phantom, whenever dramatically appropriate.

### 9. The Keystone Heart

As soon as the heroes get a look into the second, larger chamber, they should hear the distinct thrum of the tower's beating, mechanical heart. It is connected through the familiar tubes to the giant keystone interface at marker #11, and the huge window into Mechanus at marker #10, suggesting a causal connection.

It can be damaged during the final fight, although it should not be easy to do so (it will take more than a stray fireball). If damaged, the entire tower should quake and the connections to other planes should go black. Ideally, the players are alerted to the fact that they are hurting a suffering, living being when damaging the heart, forcing them to make a hard choice between stopping Aethera in this specific way and causing grievous harm to an alien form of being.

### 10. Window into Mechanus

Directly behind the heart, a giant window into Mechanus can be seen. If it comes to a confrontation, Aethera will be able to summon modron warriors to aid her through this one-way portal.

\pagebreakNum

Unbeknownst to the party, it is also the conduit for Aethera's pact with the demigods of Mechanus. The pact involves giving them the Keystone Tower in exchange for reversing all of her crimes and restoring the Firesoul Phantom to his former self, effectively remaking him and all the other victims of Aethera as members of the Warforged race, most of them without the memories of the atrocities she's inflicted on them.

### 11. Keystone Mainframe

The largest of the keystone interfaces can be seen in the top-right corner of the map. It involves five enormous metal fists, 4 of which are already activated, the final one still with an open palm, awaiting activation. This is the only thing stopping Aethera from completing her plan.

The four activated fists contain:

* The other tusk of the loxodon barbarian, called Tusk.
* One of the fin-like growths from the simic vampire's body (Finn).
* A white button mushroom from the nearby garden, symbolizing Aethera.
* A fist filled with ashes, relating to the Firesoul Phantom

What Aethera needs is one of the decorative leafs from the Oath-Breaker's cursed armor, tied to his name (Leaf), which is why she spread the word that should anyone catch him, he should be brought to her alive. However, she also knows that the Keystone Tower will accept another person of worth (a hero) giving over their symbol, their name, leading to the Mechanus portal being fully opened and Aethera striking her deal for everyone's resurrection, minus the memories of all the pain. This opens up the possibility of our heroes making the choice not to fight her, instead being convinced by her logic.

### 12. Aethera and the Spore Garden

Patiently tending to her mushroom garden, there stands Aethera, the former leader and cause of the downfall of the Fist of Five.

_There stands Aethera, with her back turned to you. Her very dress is made, or perhaps grown, from varying species of fungi, large polypores sharpen the angle of her shoulders, a net of morel mushrooms wraps around her slender neck. Her skin is ghostly grey, her ears more pointy than most half-orcs, revealing the trace of her quarter-elven blood._

_She seems to pay no mind to your approach, gently clipping the overgrown specimens in the greenery of her sprawling garden._

What the party does not know, is that the moment they enter a 30ft radius around Aethera, they are technically within the range of a nearly invisible aura of fungal spores that radiates from her. Should they prove hostile, anyone within this area will take damage and have to make a CON save or be poisoned. However, at this point she still hopes for a peaceful solution. In her mind there is a way for everyone to get what they want. Everyone has lost people and in Mechanus, everyone can be remade.

Even if you have to reforge them from half-forgotten memories...

</div>

<img src='https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3LGJ_yXgAAMKpy.jpg:large' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:325px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Anna Steinbauer</div>

###### _Aethera's Descent. Artwork by [Anna Steinbauer](https://www.artstation.com/depingo). Originally Vraska, hence the medusa snakes._

## Final Battle

Aethera should beseech the party to see things from her perspective and either allow the Oath-Breaker to activate the final hand of the giant Keystone Mainframe, allowing her to complete the pact with the demigods of Mechanus, or do the deed themselves.

Oath-Breaker is heartbroken by Aethera's betrayal (and the torture she inflicted on him, back in the room with the racks and the eviscerated mind-flayer). However, he does still harbor an unrequited love for her that she can appeal to. Her solution is also the only way to save his half-brother's soul, which is slowly burning out of existence, erasing even the memory of his name. **He is in fact, the eponymous Firesoul Phantom.**

I imagine Aethera to speak softly and reasonably, not without understanding of the atrocities she's committed, but hanging on to the thread of possible redemption. She believes everything can be fixed, that no one has to be truly lost. And the party may see her point, since she will sweeten the deal by having any of their lost loved ones returned (in warforged form, which she may or may not mention, depending on the interaction).

\pagebreakNum

If you're integrating this adventure into your campaign, this gives you an opportunity to have some semblance of lost characters be brought back.

### Enough talking, let's have at it!

It's more than likely that it will come to blows. If it does, Aethera will use her legendary actions to summon allies - at first the warrior modrons (through the portal to Mechanus, potentially by visibly interacting with the Keystone Heart) but also her own myconid fighters (emerging from the sprawling garden at marker #12).

<img src='http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/hawjtow9ffyomejcju9m.png' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:325px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art from official D&D materials, could not find the credited author, help much appreciated.</div>

###### _Myconids._

This should keep the party at a distance, maybe catch a caster in an unwanted melee engagement and introduce an element of chaos. Anyone within Aethera's aura of spores will also take damage. If a gifted melee fighter (e.g. the freed Oath-Breaker) is within her reach, she will attempt to charm him to change sides.

As the fight turns in the party's favor, she will begin to transform into a Fungal Hulk, with the polyphore fungi lining her dress's shoulders becoming a secondary set of arms with which she will try to pummel your heroes or, if the situation calls for it - a set of green wings allowing her a flight speed of 30ft.

As a DM, don't be afraid to use Aethera's legendary resistances, she will become the primary target of the party's offensive spellcasters and we do not want her polymorphed into something harmless too soon.

###### _Aether's second form - the Mushroom Hulk._

Whenever it seems like the party is gaining the upper-hand, have the **Firesoul Phantom appear** from the top-left corner or any place where a particularly fiery spell had been cast by the heroes. I did not include stats for this being, preferring to let the DM use him as dramatically needed. He cannot be destroyed but enough damage should temporarily disperse his presence.

There is a chance that the Oath-Breaker (having been in a bad shape after days of imprisonment in a cursed armor) will fall unconscious. In such an occassion, particularly if the battle isn't going her way, Aethera may try to rip a leaf-shaped ornament from his armor and place it in the final, open palm of the giant keystone interface. The party should get at least a round before she can accomplish this plan, so that they don't feel cheated out of their victory. If she does manage to activate the final hand, the pact with the demigods of Mechanus will begin too make changes to reality within Keystone Tower:

* the Firesoul Phantom will be suspended in a cloud of tiny mechanical drones, remaking his very soul into a new, warforged form, removing him from combat.
* the dead members of the Fist of Five will go through a similar process, their memories of Aethera's atrocities slowly fading from their minds.
* any of the dead townsfolk of Val will also be restored to new mechanical forms.

\pagebreakNum

However, this will not happen immediately and Aethera will remain a target for offensive actions from the party. It may even be the moment they actually manage to take her out. Given that she was not part of the original pact, she will not be restored by the forces of Mechanus.

Aethera's last trick is following through on her fungal transformation, further twisting her shape into that of a hollow, **Fungal Dragon**, complete with a flight speed of 60ft, a poisonous breath attack and a hefty amount of hit points. Maintaining this form will require her to make CON checks, if she takes damage.

###### _Aethera's third and final form - the Fungal Dragon. Artwork by [MiRA Arts](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mira-arts/forest-dragon)_

## Aftermath

There are 3 main possible aftermaths to the final confrontation with Aethera:

1. **Aethera is defeated by the party**. In this scenario, we see Aethera's physical form crumble. The Firesoul Phantom appears, kneeling beside her, an expression of anguish on his face. However, within moments, a spectral image of her half-orc form appears next to him, they embrace, the wreathing flames enveloping both of their souls. Her very name begins to slowly fade from your memories, which may be a blessing to her legacy. The party now have the chance to lay claim to the Keystone Tower, which opens the possibility of interplanar adventures.
2. **Aethera is victorious**. If the party sustains heavy casualties or decides to retreat, she will finish the ritual and strike the pact with the Gearminds of Mechanus. Everyone who was harmed by her hand will be healed, anyone who died will be remade in the form of the Warforged race, with adjusted memories. This includes fallen members of the party. Aethera should then be shown wondering if she should wipe the memories of the surviving heroes, but decides not to. Instead, with her fallen lover again at her side and the Keystone Heart under her control, she will portal the heroes out of Val, somewhere far, far away. She will also make the Keystone Tower itself teleport to another plane, out of our heroes reach. For now.
3. **Aethera convinces the party to join her cause**. Effectively similar to option #2, however resulting in a powerful ally to the heroes in the future.

Regardless, the moment the Oath-Breaker comes within Aethera's reach (either bound or freed) the law-magical contract binding the heroes is broken, the ribbon of arcane energy unwrapping itself from the heroes' arms. The original contract has been fulfilled...

<div style='margin-top:10px;'></div>
... but what was lost on the way?

\pagebreakNum

# Backstory Synopsis
#### a full, chronological retelling

This section is meant to give you all the information about the events preceding the adventure itself. It reveals the backstories of key characters, major plot points that the party may discover during the climb up Keystone Tower and the true motivations behind everyone's actions.

1. **Aethera's druidic powers to control fungal matter awaken** in her during a raid of her village, whilst she was still a child. They take the form of parasitic mushroom spores erupting from her body, enveloping both the attackers and her fallen loved ones. Both the living and the dead rise again as effectively docile zombies. This introduces Aethera to the concept of death being a gradual thing, of lost loved ones being returned, albeit in a new form. This story can be revealed to the party by one of her tribeswomen in the town of Val, by Aethera's memoirs or even by her in person.

2. **Keystone Tower appears overnight**, piercing the rocky promontory north of Val. The moment any of the townsfolk lay their eyes on the tower, its name enters their mind, as if it had always been there. This psychic handshake is something the party will also experience. The Tower, in truth a living, arcano-mechanical wonder of unknown origin, is capable of opening doorways to other worlds. However, it had been infected and monsters will soon begin to make their way from Keystone to the up-till-now quiet port of Val.

3. **Fist of Five defeat the monsters of Keystone Tower and lay their claim to it**. The heroic call is answered by a relatively unknown group of heroes, consisting of:

* Aethera, the half-orc, quarter-elf druid of the circle of the spores.
* her human lover, a sorcerer whose name cannot be recalled by anyone, due to a soul-curse placed on him by a defeated foe, that's burning even the memory of him out of existence, starting with his name.
* his half-brother, a half-eladrin paladin of the oath of the ancients, by the name of Leaf. He is the Oath-Breaker that the party is tasked with escorting back to Aethera later on. He is in love with Aethera, it is an unrequited affection.
* a simic-hybrid rogue by the name of Finn.
* a loxodon, mammoth-like barbarian called Tusk.

These heroes call themselves the Fist of Five, and from now on they begin exploring the many worlds opened to them by the Keystone Tower. Control over the doorways is gained by interfacing with the tower, which always requires a form of self-sacrifice or identification through e.g. giving the Tower something that symbolizes a given person (e.g. an ornament in the shape of a leaf for the paladin).

4. **Fist of Five fight a great enemy and lose one of their members**, namely Aethera's human lover. The enemy, perhaps a devil or a powerful fey being, burns its own soul in order to curse the sorcerer who caused its downfall. This results in a condition later referred to as _pyromortis_. The victim's body is turned immediately to ashes, but it's his soul that will truly suffer, as the Fist will learn soon enough.

5. Whilst **grieving for their lost comrade, a fiery specter appears in Keystone Tower**, this is the eponymous _Firesoul Phantom_, the very burning soul of the human sorcerer. The Fist, driven by Aethera's refusal to accept the finality of death, partially pushed to the edge by the side-effect of the soul curse, resulting in them beginning to forget details about their companion, start looking for ways to resurrect their fallen brother.

6. **Progressively dark attempts at returning the Firesoul Phantom to the realm of the living are made**. It begins with simple divine resurrections spells. Your players will find evidence of these efforts on the first floor of Keystone Tower, in a chamber where holy symbols of all sorts were amassed. When this doesn't work, Aethera begins to betray her companions and use them as guinea pigs in her experiments. She hopes that if she manages to save her lover, together they will be able to reverse any atrocity committed in order to bring him back.

7. **Each member of the Fist of Five falls prey to Aethera's experiments**. Without any member knowing about the fate of the others', Aethera manages to: 
* Lock the loxodon barbarian in a mechanism of cyclical death and resurrection, in an attempt to better understand divine magic, to no avail.
* Turn the simic-hybrid rogue named Finn into a vampire, against his will, hoping that the answer to the Firesoul Phantom's resurrection may lay in undeath. During her research, she finds ancient writings, preserved on human skin, from a vampire civilization long turned to dust, which provide her with more information about the condition of pyromortis.
* Attempt a pact with an evil Archfey, in the form of a death-themed Tree of Truth. The Tree, though it answers questions honestly, always picks the worst truth a person could possibly hear. This leads Aethera to a clue about a possibility of extracting the memories of her lost lover from his friends and loved ones, via the kinds of abilities possessed by the mind-flayers, and then preserving those memories in a new body. 
* Torture the half-eladrin paladin by activating a disected mind-flayer's psychic abilities and unleashing them upon him, in an effort to learn more about the mind and ways to preserve it. She also steals the gelatinous cubes that the mind-flayer had been experimenting on, granting them psychic powers of their own and effectively creating the race of oblexes. All of this will be found by the heroes on the final floor of Keystone Tower.

\pagebreakNum

8. **The younger oblexes escape their confinement, leading to the paladin breaking his oath**. Leaf is at this point chained on a rack next to the disected body of a mind-flayer. He notices that the oblexes held in enchanted glass containers on the other end of the chamber, have managed to escape and are oozing their way out to the lower leves of the towers. Having experienced their psychic might and their ability to mimic the minds of their victims, he decides he must act to protect the people of Val. He breaks his oath by using necromantic magic to animate the dead mind-flayer next to him, using his powers to unlock his own chains. Leaf's armor becomes cursed, rejecting the path chosen by its wielder. The now fallen but not entirely lost paladin makes his way through the portals of Keystone Tower back to Val, just in time to notice that the oblexes have already absorbed and impersonated a number of the townsfolk.

9. **The Oath-Breaker paladin uses necromantic powers to battle the oblexes**, he raises many of those already killed by the oblexes but does not manage to overcome their combined psychic might. He flees, whilst the blame for the people's deaths falls entirely on him. Oblexes slowly infiltrate the city of Val. They are doing it partially by instinct of self-preservation. Their ultimate goal is increasing their numbers enough to re-enter the tower and free the Elder Oblex, still imprisoned on its top floor. For this reason, a large number of them, disguised in the forms of normal townsfolk, are always present as a mob near the main entrance to Keystone Tower. Your adventuring party may meet them there.

10. **The Oath-Breaker is captured by another group of heroes**. Once Aethera learned of his escape, she spread the word that a reward will await anyone who returns him to her, bound and gagged but alive. She still needs him to accomplish her last-ditch attempt at bringing back her lost loved one. This includes sacrificing the Keystone Tower itself, giving its beating, mechanical heart over to the demigods of the Plane of Mechanus, who - in return - would restore everyone she wishes, without the memories of her crimes, in the form of Warforged. In Aethera's mind, she can still _fix everything_, she just needs the last member of the Fist of Five to help her activate the final portal. However, she suspects that the tower would also bend to the will of other heroes, which is why appealing to your adventuring party's sense of their own lost loved ones is also an option.

This is where your adventuring party enters the adventure, with a bound and gagged Oath-Breaker ready to be transported to Val to face Aethera's judgment. With no knowledge of the above, the heroes will have to put the pieces together from scraps of information gained through history checks, discussions with the townsfolk of Val and their own discoveries within Keystone Tower.

### Known issues, future fixes

There's a number of things I'd like to fix in this adventure, if I could spend more time on this side-project. I invite anyone who wishes to help out and collaborate on it to reach out via contact info on the first page of this document.

<img src='https://www.gmbinder.com/images/yWN6spfh.jpg' style='position:inline;top:125px;right:30px;width:340px; mix-blend-mode:multiply;' />
<div class='footnote'>Art by Greg Opalinski</div>

###### _Aethera's tribesman - orcish and elvish blood. Artwork by [Greg Opalinski](https://www.deviantart.com/greg-opalinski/art/Blademaster-381582409)_

As is, the story is pretty complex for a potential one-shot. It probably works better as a story for 1-3 5h sessions. I recommend either playing it in full over 3 sessions or cutting it down to a simple dungeon-crawl with a mystery in it, by dropping the heroes already on the first floor of the tower, with the Firesoul Phantom making its first appearance then and there. You can also drop the NPC oblex sub-plot entirely.

Since we're trying not to railroad the party, there's a lot of variance in whether they decide to remove the Oath-Breaker's gag and free him before delivering him to Aethera. I could've spent more time fleshing out how those alternatives would impact each scene in the main story walkthrough.

Other than that I think breaking down the story into 3 clear acts and those into smaller scenes could potentially make the adventure clearer to the DM, with a clear direction regarding what the reason behind each scene being present is, what emotions it's meant to elicit and how it moves the plot forward.

A small thing that I'd like to switch is also the conection between the Firesoul Phantom and the plane of fire. In retrospect it seems both too obvious and it doesn't make much sense. As a fix, I'd consider having the Phantom stay within e.g. some water-based plane, possibly temporarily dousing the flames - e.g. he could then be the humanoid figure seen behind the glass of the floor with the Archfey Tree of Truth.

Regardless, I hope it will inspire you to take whatever works in your campaign and have fun with it!

\pagebreakNum

# World-Relevant Information
#### revealed through ability checks (e.g. history or arcana)

This section consists of snippets of backstory and other information about the world of the adventure, which your party may learn by talking to NPCs, investigating their environment or trying to simply remember what they themselves may know as characters.

### Fist of Five
* The 5 established heroes of these lands. First is the elven druid Aethera. Second was a great human sorcerer whose name no one can recall (even his name is being burned out of existence). Third was the paladin (half-eladrin). Fourth the simic-hybrid assassin called Finn. Fifth the barbarian loxodon - Tusk.

* They entered Keystone Tower and made it their home, investigating it was one of their first missions. The Val was just a small town back then and it grew under the patronage of the Fist, with the heroes often protecting it from harm from land and sea in these tumultuous times. Aethera has been known to preside as judge over local disputes and she has a knack for both the natural and the technical, having made the tower her home.

* There was a love triangle between Aethera and the half-brothers (the Paladin and the Sorcerer), but some say she chose one, some the other.

* On one of the latest adventures something happened and the Fist didn’t seem the same any more, one of them (the Sorcerer) has not been seen since then.

* Whilst everyone can remember the names of the 4/5 Fist members, the last one’s name cannot be recalled by anyone. We just know that he was a Sorcerer.

* Aethera has brought holy symbols into the tower, strange creatures in the night, there were noises and screams coming from it.

### The World Setting (optional)

* The barriers between the planes have grown thin in recent centuries, with gates having opened to Ravnica, the city-world, the Nine Hells and the celestial wilderness. Also Mechanus and the Feywild. Many portals have opened over the water, as it is a natural conduit of arcane and elemental travel. This led to ships being more useful and thus Val grew to prominence in recent years, albeit the world also became more dangerous, with strange, unknown beings harassing the people too.

* Along with the thinning of boundaries between realms new types of magic have been discovered, among them the law-magic of the Azorius Senate carried over from Ravnica, the plane of the Guild-pact. Elemental magic has expanded and changed its nature. There are also rumours of arcanists experimenting with magic related to fates and even the **immortal soul** itself.

* _(for Druids and Rangers)_ Many of the world’s forests have not dealt well with the thinning of the barriers between worlds. Intelligent systems deal better with sudden changes. It is said that for example wood is greatly valued in Ravnica, where there are very little forests. _The loss of the great woodlands of old is a potential motivator for nature-based characters and something that they could be tempted with in the final confrontation with Aethera._

* As the barriers between worlds have thinned some beings of greater power, somehow unable to reach into this world personally have been known to enlist lesser mortals to do their bidding through pacts. Some of these beings are celestial in nature, others less so. It is believed that the most powerful of these beings cannot lie, as their lies are so big they couldn’t squeeze through the keyholes!

### Keystone Tower

* The strange structure, for which the Val is now famous, appeared overnight in its entirety, cutting through the rocky cliffs, at an angle, partially re-emerging from the stone near the sea level. No one knows how deep it goes. But when it appeared all the townsfolk dreamed of strange things and they all awoke knowing exactly what the name of this structure is - the Keystone Tower.

* After it originally arrived people were afraid of it. Some tried to enter it but could not find an entrance and told tales of strange creatures climbing its walls. Later, the Fist found their way in and it is said that they battled the creatures. After that the Keystone became their fortress and somwething of a ourist attraction.

### Pyromortis - Firesoul Phantom's Curse

* Among diseases of the soul there are many, some stemming from simple sin, others from dealings with infernal and abyssal agents. Some, finally, deal with fate and the nature of the eternal souls themselves. The great light that warms our truest cores can be stoked and channeled as a source of great power, illuminating its controller with true knowledge and immolating their enemies with a fire burning more fiercely than any other arcane flame ever could.

### The Oath-Breaker

* The half-eladrin paladin was once devoted to the Gods of Nature. He was known to have reunited with his brother, an arcane practitioner, and to have grown up with Aethera amongst the great wild expanses of the Feywild.

* He broke his oath, killed and rose the undead to assault the city of Val. Further knowledge tells us it was an effort to stem the oblex infestation. However he then ran, knowing that Aethera needed him to perform her work, as he both loves her and is terrified of her. He is resentful of her for choosing his brother and does not believe his brother should be revived through these unnatural means.

\pagebreakNum

# Monster Stat-Blocks
#### for the encounters

Some creature's stats have been tweaked a little from core rules. The list of monsters for which stats have been provided includes, in alphabetical order:
1. Aethera, druid form
2. Aethera, mushroom hulk form
3. Aethera, fungal dragon form
4. Finn, the simic hybrid vampire
5. Leaf, the oath-breaker paladin
6. Modron Minion
7. Myconid
8. Oblex, young
9. Oblex, elder

___
> ## Aethera, druid form
>*Medium, Neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 17
> - **Hit Points** 120
> - **Speed** 30ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|12 (+1)|18 (+4)|20 (+5)|18 (+4)|22 (+6)|18 (+4)|
>___
> - **Abilities** Relentless Endurance (back to 1hp from 0)
> - **Damage Resistances** Poison, Disease
> - **Languages** Common, Druidic, Sylvan, Elvish, Abyssal
> - **Weaknesses** Can be hurt by the Keystone Tower, under someone else's partial control. Also psychic damage from the electrified mind-flayer.
> - **Challenge** 10    
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Spellcasting.*** Blight (CON-18) - 8d8 necrotic, Blindness/Deafness (CON-18, lasts 1 minute), Confusion (WIS-18, 10ft radius, random effect), Cloudkill (CON-18, 20ft radius) 5d8 at start of turn, rolls 10ft per round, Heat Metal (great against armored targets).
>
> ***Circle of Spores*** if an enemy moves within 10ft of her, CON-18 save or 1d10 necrotic from aura of spores. Also gains the homebrewed version of a fungal body, which is her mushroom hulk form.
>
> ***Attacks*** 2 per turn, +9 to hit, 1d8 acid + 2d8 slashing from a magical scimitar.
>
> ***Legendary Resistances*** 3 per day, kept in other forms.
>
> ***Legendary Actions*** 3 per round, kept in other forms.

\columnbreak

___
> ## Aethera, mushroom hulk form
>*Huge, neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 19
> - **Hit Points** 150
> - **Speed** 40ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|20 (+5)|12 (+1)|20 (+5)|18 (+4)|22 (+6)|10 (+0)|
>___
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** Fire
> - **Damage Resistances** Disease, Poison
> - **Immunities** Cannot be blinded, deafened, frightened
> - ***Abilities*** Optional flight (30ft), at the cost of -2 attacks,
> - **Challenge** 10
> ___
>
> ### Actions
>***Circle of the Spores*** - has a 30ft aura of deadly spores, anyone within takes 1d10 poison damage at the end of every turn spent inside.
>
> ***Multiattack.*** the creature has 4 attacks (2 if it has flight, which means the second set of arms becomes wings instead). +11 to hit, 10ft reach, 3d8 bludgeoning damage.

\pagebreakNum

___
___
> ## Aethera, fungal dragon
>*Gargantuan, neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 21
> - **Hit Points** 200
> - **Speed** 45ft (flying and running)
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|26 (+8)|12 (+1)|21 (+5)|18 (+4)|22 (+6)|14 (+2)|
>___
> - **Skills** Flight, poison breath weapon (60ft cone)
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** Fire, Keystone Tower traps
> - **Damage Resistances** Poison, Disease
> - **Challenge** 10 
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Multiattack.*** The Creature Name makes Number and type of attacks
>
> ***Frightful Presence.*** WIS-16 or freightened, save at end of turn.
>
> ***Breath Attack*** Poison cone (60ft), CON-18 or 10d10 poison damage, roll d20 to see if regained at end of each turn (above 10).
>
>***Multi-attack*** 4 attacks per turn, 1 bite, 2 claw and one wing/tail. If it beats its wings - DEX-19 save or knocked prone + 4d6 bludgeoning damage. +11 to hit, 15ft range, 3d10 slashing + 2d8 poison.

___
___
> ## Finn, simic hybrid vampire
>*Medium undead, neutral evil*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 16
> - **Hit Points** 95
> - **Speed** 35ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|18 (+4)|18 (+4)|18 (+4)|17 (+3)|15 (+2)|18 (+4)|
>___
> - **Skills** flight (manta glide adaptation), advantage on grappling checks (tentacle appendages)
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** radiant, sunlight
> - **Damage Resistances** necrotic
> - **Languages** Common, Elvish, Vampiric
> - **Challenge** 8
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Multiattack.*** 3 attacks, 2 claw, 1 tentacle (DEX-15 or restrained). +7 to hit, 2d10 damage + 1d6 necrotic.
>
> ***Undead Regeneration*** Unless hit by holy water, holy oil or sunlight-based spells, regenerated 20 hit points at the end of the round.
>
> ***Vampiric Charm*** 1 per day, bonus action, WIS-17 save on direct eye contact, victim becomes an ally of the vampire until it makes its save at the end of its turn.

___
___
> ## Leaf, the oath-breaker paladin
>*Medium half-eladrin, neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 19 in armor, with shield (+2)
> - **Hit Points** 65 when wearing cursed armor, 85 otherwise (e.g. if redeemed)
> - **Speed** 30ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|16 (+3)|16 (+3)|14 (+2)|12 (+1)|14 (+2)|20 (+5)|
>___
> - **Aura of Protection** Allies within 10ft get +5 to saving throws.
> - **Damage Resistances** charm spells
> - **Languages** Common, Sylvan, Elvish, Abyssal
> - **Challenge** 6
> - **Weakness** When not redeemed but wearing the armor of the ancient gods of nature, doing damage to good creatures causes 1/2 of the same damage to the fallen paladin.
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Attacks.*** 2 per turn, +6 to hit, 3d10 damage with the blade-of-grass, built into the armor (like the shield).
>
> ***Necromancy of the Fallen*** if no longer gagged, is able to raise undead (zombies & skeletons) with only verbal components, which can be spoken very softly (1 per day).
>
> ***Spellcasting*** Misty step, Ice Storm, Moon Beam (great against shape-shifters e.g. vampires or oblexes), Inflict Wounds (3d10 necrotic), Crown of Madness (WIS-17).

\pagebreakNum

___
___
> ## Modron Minions
>*Medium construct, lawful neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 16
> - **Hit Points** 50
> - **Speed** 30ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|14 (+2)|13 (+1)|16 (+3)|14 (+2)|10 (+0)|8 (-1)|
>___
> - **Skills** advantage on tinkering checks
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** lighting damage (fries circuitry)
> - **Damage Resistances** slashing damage
> - **Challenge** 4
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Attack.*** 1 attack per turn, +5 to hit, 1d10

___
___
> ## Myconids
>*Medium creature, neutral*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** AC 14
> - **Hit Points** 40
> - **Speed** 20ft on land, 40ft in water
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|15 (+2)|16 (+3)|18 (+4)|10 (+0)|6 (-2)|5 (-3d)|
>___
> - **Skills** 40ft swimming speed
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** Fire
> - **Damage Resistances** Poison, Disease
> - **Challenge** 4
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Attack.*** 1 attack, +5 to hit, 1d8 bludgeoning + 1d6 poison.

___
___
> ## Oblex, young
>*Medium monstrosity, neutral evil*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 14
> - **Hit Points** 75
> - **Speed** 25ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|8 (-1)|19 (+4)|16 (+3)|19 (+4)|12 (+1)|15 (+2)|
>___
> - **Skills** psychic intrusions
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** fire, electricity, spells agains shape-shifters (e.g. moonbeam)
> - **Damage Resistances** bludgeoning
> - **Damage Immunities** Blindness, deafness, prone
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Multiattack.*** 2 attacks per turn, +7 to hit, 1d6 + 4 bludgeoning (pseudopods) + 1d8 psychic.
>
> ***Eat Memories.*** WIS-15 as a bonus action, or the victim loses a random memory and is confused until end of turn.
>
> ***Shapeshifter*** Can take the form of anyone whose memories it has eaten, without the official rule of being connected to that form via a tendril of red tissue, whilst maintaining its usual form. In this adventure, only elder oblexes are limited this way.
>
> ***Spellcaster*** Charm person, color spray, detect thoughts, hold person.

\pagebreakNum

___
___
> ## Oblex, elder
>*Huge monstrosity, neutral evil*
> ___
> - **Armor Class** 12
> - **Hit Points** 115
> - **Speed** 20ft
>___
>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|
>|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
>|12 (+1)|20 (+5)|19 (+4)|22 (+6)|16 (+3)|18 (+4)|
>___
> - **Skills** psychic intrusions
> - **Damage Vulnerabilities** fire, electricity, spells agains shape-shifters (e.g. moonbeam)
> - **Damage Resistances** any non-magical
> - **Damage Immunities** Blindness, deafness, prone
> ___
>
> ### Actions
> ***Multiattack.*** 3 attacks per turn, +11 to hit, 3d6 + 8 bludgeoning (pseudopods) + 3d8 psychic.
>
> ***Eat Memories.*** WIS-17 as a bonus action, or the victim loses a random memory and is stunned until end of turn.
>
> ***Shapeshifter*** Can take the form of anyone whose memories it has eaten, but this form has to be connected to the main gelatinous body of the oblex via a thin, red tendril. Can potentially pull off impersonating another being whilst near a hollow wall.
>
> ***Spellcaster*** Charm person, dimension door, dominate person, fear, telekinesis.

## Appreciation

Special thank you to:

* Vaehalla,the eladrin assassin
* Bella "Arrow" Nethfirith, the tiefling swashbuckler
* Old Knob, the druid of the forests
* Baraxiel of Boros, the paladin from Ravnica
* Horacius, the trickster cleric
* Yospip "Longnose" of Clan Dingle, a gnomish wizard of evocation

Who have experienced this adventure in its raw form, gave feedback regarding how it could be improved and, I hope, enjoyed the experience ;)

### Artist Credits

In this section, I combine all artist references in one place.

* _The Firesoul. Cover artwork by Kai Fine Art's [John Silva](https://www.kaifineart.com/2016/12/john-silva.html)._
* _The Phantom again, by [000fesbra000](https://www.deviantart.com/000fesbra000)_
* _Law-magic. Artwork by [Wayne Reynolds](https://www.waynereynolds.com/)_
* _The Oath-Breaker. Artwork by the amazing [Veronica Kozlova](https://www.artstation.com/sleeping_bird)_
* _Drunken Mermaid. Artwork by the amazing [Joel Harlow](https://morphologyfx.com)_
* _Deadly Flowers. Artwork by the amazing [Botond Harko](https://www.deviantart.com/harkobotond)_
* _Keystone Tower. Artwork by [Linus Daniel Lindbalk](https://lindbalk.cgsociety.org/)_
* _Elder Oblex. Artwork from the Mordenkeinen's Tome of Foes, I was unable to find the artist, but here's the [story behind it](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/235-meet-d-ds-new-scariest-monster-in-mordenkainens)_
* _Modrons. Artwork by [Julie Dillon](https://www.juliedillonart.com/)_
* _The Simic Hybrid Vampire. Artwork by [Florence Jia Hao](http://terpica.pw/ArtStation-Florence-Jia-Hao-Bestiary-in-2019-t-Alien-art.html)_
* _The Archfey Tree of Truth. Artwork by [Riccardo Federici](https://www.instagram.com/riccardo_federici_art/?hl=pl)_
* _Aethera's Descent. Artwork by [Anna Steinbauer](https://www.artstation.com/depingo). Originally Vraska, hence the medusa snakes._
* _Aethera's third and final form - the Fungal Dragon. Artwork by [MiRA Arts](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mira-arts/forest-dragon)_
* _Aethera's tribesman - orcish and elvish blood. Artwork by [Greg Opalinski](https://www.deviantart.com/greg-opalinski/art/Blademaster-381582409)_

\columnbreak

Finally, thank you, the reader, for taking the time to delve into this adventure! I hope elements of it are useful or at least will inspire your own ideas to enrich your campaign. If you have any feedback or just want to get in touch, send me an email to _velabooks@protonmail.com_.

Remember to love each other ;)