Bottomless Pits

On the 25th day of Mot in the fourth year of Gostul the Just

Through the many dungeons I have scoured looking for Gadeon I discovered some peculiar similarities. I looked through my notes and discovered why. In each structure with a bottomless pit they almost all had the same maker's mark on them.

Initially I took it for a simple piece of decoration, but I have seen it again and again. The pits were all clearly designed to be bottomless, though even with magic that is nigh impossible. They went through several designs as the newer bottomless pits were more evolved. This mage, if they are still alive, will be a valuable resource in tracking down Gadeon. 

---

These bottomless pits are simple things made to be dropped into your campaign wherever it makes sense. Their actual depth is less important than how they work, but are assumed to be 100 ft. deep. The pits could be covered by camouflage or illusions to trap unsuspecting creatures, or they may be open pits that creatures are forcibly thrown into to. The gates in the real pits are invisible, but are shown here in purple for clarity. All the pits have the same maker's mark.

Pit Design 1

The broken pit design.  This design had a flaw in it. Falling through gate 2, was supposed to drop you out of gate 1 and down again, but gate 1 tended to launch the falling object up, typically into a ceiling. This flaw made it very popular among some circles. You can easily spot a defective one by the dried blood and cracked tiles on the ceiling above it. Dropping a rock into the pit will create a slow steady rhythm as it hits the ceiling and falls into the pit again and again.

Pit Design 2

Fall forever... This is a simple device, where hitting gate 2 sends you to gate 1, and you fall forever. The flaw was worked out in this design and gate 1 actually drops you to gate 2. In addition the first gate was lowered so the opening at the top wouldn't get noticeably bigger and smaller as the creature fell between the two gates. In old installations of this pit the space between the two gates is filled with all sorts of bones and debris.

Pit Design 3

Furthering the illusion that you were truly falling forever this is actually a series of pits. Where the opening is slightly smaller in each pit. The creature falls through gate 1, out of gate 2, into gate 3, out of gate 4, and so on eventually getting trapped in between gates 7 and 8. As in pit design 2 the space between gates 7 and 8 can be filled with large amounts of debris in older installations.

Pit Design 4

While pit design 3 was more convincing to the falling creature it took up lot of space. Design 4 overcame that problem by having an iris in the top of the pit that slowly closed to give the pit opening the appearance of getting farther and farther away.

Pit Design 5

One of the hardest pit designs to escape from, the gate at the bottom of this pits sends you to a pocket dimension in the shape of a torus. Where you will fall forever. Once every d100 days the torus dimension expunges its contents onto a random plane.

Pit Design 6

This simple pit uses a time spell to trap the falling creatures. For them time is traveling normally, but 100 years passes outside of the pit for every second in the pit. Looking into the pit after dropping someone or something into it is a bit surreal. For a 100 foot pit the person will fall for 2.5 seconds or 250 years. If you extend or shorten the depth of the pit the formula to figure out the time to fall is \(t = \sqrt{2d \over 32}\) where d is distance in feet, and t will be given in seconds.

Pit Design 7

This is the ultimate in bottomless pit designs. In the floor is a slight depression that contains a spell, when someone steps into the depression the spell is triggered. The spell levitates the person above the depression and casts the illusion of falling into a pit that goes on forever. To escape it you need a high will AND reflex save. If you miss either one the spell takes hold again, and is more convincing the more you fail, increasing the DC by 1 each time you fail. If multiple people step into the depression they believe they are falling alone. Some adventures like to throw their companions into these circles, and let them suffer a bit before they drag them out again with rope or push them out with a staff. All in good fun.

---

Source Materials

---

Bottomless Pits by Rogue Prismatic Golem is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://rogueprismaticgolem.blogspot.com.

Tome Time

On the 11th day of Mot in the fourth year of Gostul the Just
I picked up the most curious book today titled A History of Gadeon. Having never seen such a tome before I studied it in depth. It was heavily annotated and cross referenced. It covered topics known only to Gadeon, Katra, and myself. No author was listed. I put the book safely in my pack to study later. This depth of knowledge of Gadeon can only help me find him sooner.
The next time I opened my pack, the book was gone...

---

Tome of Claron

This tome has the following properties:

• Once touched, and as soon as it is out of sight, it will teleport to a new location. It will not teleport while watched or touched. It will always stay on plane.
• When it teleports to the new location it changes all superficial appearances (size, color, thickness, cover, spine art), but it tries very hard to become like all the books around it.
• It favors libraries and large collections of books, but any set of books will do.
• It does not detect as magic for any reason.
• It only creates content and a title when it is touched for the first time after a teleportation. The title and content will remains static until after it teleports again.
• The book is always truthful in its content, and is apparently omniscient, but it can and will leave out details. It cannot predict the future.
• It often disguises itself as an annotated version of the book it is next to with biting, but true, corrections.

Rarity

There is only one in the known universe.

Origin

The majority of learned men and wizards, librarians and tome traders don't even know of the existence of the book. Those that do, mostly believe it is a myth. The handful of believers in the world have a few theories.

• It was soul trap for a powerful mage. And it worked.
• The lost journal of the Trickster God Solkul
• A Spell book that acquired self knowledge.
• Other theories abound...

Book of Ashes

As each page is read it crumbles into ashes. Trying to copy the book, by any means, instantly destroys it.

Rarity

Common in secret societies.

Origin

Once the book is written it is infused through ritual with the essence of salamander. On completion of that ritual it is left in the sun for 7 hours.

Golem Primer of Kurrn

This primer on stone golem creation for young wizards is widely known among practitioners as being faulty. If the young would be golem creator follows the instructions as written they will fail every time. They are often given the book as a prank. If a would be golemist tries to use the book and wants to overcome its deficiency have them roll on the following list.

1. They create a golem generator which will spit out one golem per round. Their goal is to kill their creator. Killing the generator kills all generated golems.
2. They turn themselves to stone.
3. They create a lump of clay that will move and moan for 1d10 rounds, then collapse into dust.
4. They create a wall of stone around themselves.
5. Nothing happens.
6. They actually succeed.

Rarity

Common among certain wizard groups.

Origin

Kurrn was a wizard of no renown in their time, and managed to write a terrible primer. So terrible it has been copied many times over.

---

Tome Time by Rogue Prismatic Golem is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://rogueprismaticgolem.blogspot.com.