Temple of Venkatesh 9

After watching The Jungle Book and a National Geographic documentary on tigers, I decided to write down a few more thoughts about the temple of Venkatesh. I did this without re-reading the old posts and found that I duplicated myself in several respects.

1. I am not sure if the trappings of the temple and the surrounding jungle should resemble the Aztecs and Latin America, the Malaysians and southeast Asia, or a mix of both. The desire for the latter comes from the Jungle Book and National Geographic, both of which also tie into point two.

2. In addition to human and other PC race slaves, the yuan-ti could have a group of weretigers or werejaguars as warrior-slaves. If the Aztec motif is chosen, these slaves also serve in the arena as the championship team of ball players.

3. Duplication the first - the temple has surrounding buildings. In this case, I listed several buildings that I knew would be found at an Aztec temple or that just made sense: residential areas for yuan-ti, slave pits for slaves, a ball court, and a palace. Old posts have shown that an ossuary-reliquary-evil creepy temple of bones is also needed. I figure, after reading the old post, that the yuan-ti place the bodies of the sacrifices on the outside walls of the reliquary until scavengers and the elements have eroded all but the bone. The clean bones are then moved inside the building to serve as raw necromantic material, creepy building material, or sorted for decorations (as needed and definitely with a wall or mini pyramid of skulls). Should the reliquary be a separate building or part of the main temple structure? One level of the temple could be adorned on the exterior with the rotting bodies and the inside of that level would then serve as the reliquary. This ensures that the PCs do not have to invade/investigate a separate building in order to use all the cool imagery and undead potential.

4. Duplication the second - the upper levels of the temple are only for snake-bodied yuan-ti and they use footstep-based traps to ensure this. This is all old-hat but watching Fritz the Cat (at the end with the revolutionaries who are going to blow up the power plant) gave me the idea that the simple sound of footsteps is an automatic alert on these levels to the presence of someone who shouldn't be there.

5. The body of the explorer (and his half of the map) could be among the bones of the reliquary. Perhaps the possessions of the sacrifices are stored in the treasure chamber and they could find the map therein.

A Model Ship, A Treasure Map

The clues to the use of the model ship as a treasure map lie within the main sail. There are three methods that could be used:

1- There is a code or pattern plainly visible on the sail which needs to be deciphered.
2- There is a code of pattern hidden on the sail, such as with temperature dependent ink (hold near a candle flame to view) or invisible ink that can be seen through a special glass or crystal.
3- There is a hidden message contained within the sail, a slip of paper or linen woven or concealed between two larger pieces that together constitute the sail.

I have tentatively gone with the temperature-dependent ink revealed by the heat of a candle's flame. The hidden message is something along the lines (no attempt at refinement or rhyme having been made):

"A true captain of the sea does not rely on a map in hiding his treasure.
He needs only the hull of his ship and his sails to lead the way."

The hull of the ship is made from knotted wood. Around the hole for the anchor chain is an eight-pointed star corresponding to a compass. When the ship is turned such that the SW arrow points north, the knots in the wood correspond to the islands visible during the monsoon floods. Between the knots is an almost imperceptible indentation in the shape of an X. This is the location of the sunken ship.

Unfortunately for those who seek the treasure, the knots do not correspond to permanent islands but, rather, mountains. So as they pore through nautical maps to find a match, they will be sorely tested.

Edit: I am adding my additional thoughts to this thread post publishing because I want to keep them all in the same place.

Problems I encountered while thinking of this:

1- How do the players know where to look? The ship sank ages ago in a desert covered by water. Their only map details a landscape entirely unfamiliar to them or anyone else because the valley has not been flooded more than a couple times since (and likely not even that).

Obviously even the survivor who made the model ship needed a prominent landmark on a continent-wide scale to find his way back to the ship lost in the ocean. Since his ship wrecked and he had to drift back to land, the map would allow him to find the place he came ashore and then lead to the treasure from there.

2- How to indicate such a landmark on the ship? A huge knot in the wood could indicate a nearby town or island or even continental coastline. But there needs to be a clue for the player's to discover its identity. It may be that the shipmaker did not intend for the model to lead himself back to the ship but, rather, for an acquaintance or descendant to find it.

The ship's name could correspond to the landmark via code or local nickname. Or the riddle on the sail could include the starting location and its indication on the hull. I had an idea a while back that the sail would have a spot in the cloth or a hole or the rigging would have a stray knot or two such that when laid over the hull it would indicate a particular knot or mark in the wood. This spot would be the location of the sunken ship. It could also be the starting location or a clue to it.

Another idea I had, in conjunction with the ship's name or sail containing the starting location (which would match up to the source material, since they were given the latitude and longitude of a town from which to begin their search), I thought of using the diary of the survivor. It, or fragments of it, would be hidden away in the town inside a chest or secret compartment. Inside the ship, either glued inside the hull or concealed within the mast (or consisting of the mast itself, after pulling it from the model), would be a key that opens the lock. The diary could then provide further details to find the ship.

But to stay with the point of the adventure, the real treasure of the sunken ship is not the meager gold it carries from its first foray but the half of the treasure map still stowed with its cargo. One wonders why the survivor did not put that map in his diary, be it in fact or by reproduction, so I want to steer away from the diary.

Temple of Venkatesh 8

Just some notes to myself this time:

1- Make sure to use the halfblood archer from the Slayer's Guide as an encounter since you have a decent picture.

2- You can use the maps from the Fortress of the Yuan-Ti whole cloth or as guides for the large temple.

3- Klang from TaleSpin (For Whom the Bell Klangs) could be a human-headed abomination in charge of a group of purebloods who are seeking the Valley of the Sun (if you want to go with the option that the yuan-ti are looking for it as an offering to their god). As per the episode, he disguises his snake-body with robes and a cloak, allowing only his face and hands to show. However, his arms are fake; they are either grafts from another creature (demonic grafts from the Fiendish Codex sound good) or chaositech (if you want to bring a little Ptolus into the game). His movements are not natural for a walking creature so some hints may be dropped about his heritage that way (although with demon grafts the players might think something along those lines, which is good).

Temple of Venkatesh 7

More pictures!

I wanted to get across what I visualized with Venkatesh's headdress so I decided to Google image search some pictures of "aztec priest".

This was one of the first images and it is pretty much exactly what I was looking for:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Travel/Pix/gallery/2001/01/30/aztec_priest.gif

Each of those feathers would be replaced by a spine. Whether the skulls would be on the outside of the headdress or make up the head part of it is up for grabs. It would look suitably morbid either way.

Here is some jewelry and tattoos from Apocalypto, a movie I knew would have some inspirational material:

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/gruesome_apocalypto_431x300.jpg

Again with a large headdress, although not as peacock as the first one. I figure Venkatesh would have some of that jewelry hanging from his neck and armbands and tattoos or multicolored scale patterns on his body.

Here is another big headdress:

http://ra.2mcl.com/wp/movies/movies-Apocalypto-395.jpg

Without even trying, I duplicated his skin coloration by choosing coral snakes as the temple servants.

Temple of Venkatesh 6

Abominations serve within the temple itself as the priests. Venkatesh is, of course, the high priest.

The surrounding community is populated by halfbloods and a few purebloods not on a mission in foreign lands.

Slaves of all races are found within and around the temple. They perform menial labor and often serve as food.

The inner areas of the temple can only be safely accessed by abominations and snake-tailed halfbloods (though the halfbloods are not actually permitted there).

Most of the traps in the temple are poisoned so the yuan-ti can detect them with their detect poison psionic ability. Some traps, particularly those further in the temple, are not specifically to foil any yuan-ti who would overstep their bounds. The abomination priests know where these traps are and they are mostly the kind that trigger via stepping (rendering the snake-tailed yuan-ti immune).

The abomination temple acolytes are red, yellow, and black banded snakes like coral snakes. They always have black heads.

http://faqinfosite.com/snakesvipersdeadliestdeadlydangerousvenom/images/coral.jpg

The abomination priests are all black-scaled cobras with gold-lined hoods (the inside of their hoods, near the face, have golden scales). They also possess the indian cobra's curled design on their backs, again of gold scales.

http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/sevcik/indian-cobra--naja-naja-2.jpg

I have not decided if Venkatesh has a hood. He is definitely black-scaled and he has the diamondback pattern down his back.

http://www.reptileknowledge.com/images/eastern-diamondback.jpg

I feel a hood would get in the way of, and detract from, the skull and spine headdress he wears. It is possible, however, for him to have a hood but keep it "tucked in" against his head and neck while wearing the headdress. Whether he has the hood or not, he definitely does not display it while wearing the headdress.

The Little Wooden Boat

So we had a brainstorming session in the OYT community chat and I think I finally came up with something. And, of course, it is obvious.

Contraserrene once again is brilliant and creative at the drop of a hat, although this time it was not his idea I stole.

The main sail of the model ship will contain hidden markings that serve as the key to the map. The map consists of the knotholes and other wood patterns on the hull of the ship. Some fine filigree along the ship's railing serves as a coordinate system that is detailed on the sail. So, you decipher the sail, discover the markings on the boat, and match them up to find the sunken ship.

Of course, it is not so easy. Because the valley is no longer flooded, you have to look up to find the islands and landmarks that were visible from the sailing ship.

The actual construction of the cipher will come later.

Perhaps the mast, maidenhead, or the pole that juts out from the hull above the maidenhead is detachable and bears a key on the hidden side. This key opens the chests in the sunken ship and disables the traps on them.

Temple of Venkatesh 5

So, if I want to combine the yuan-ti temple idea with some of the DuckTales ideas, I need to brainstorm a bit.

The point of the sunken ship in DuckTales was to get the party interested in finding the further riches of the Valley of the Golden Sun. But the yuan-ti temple is not a golden paradise waiting to be found. It is an active temple inhabited by a cult of yuan-ti and fueled with human sacrifice.

Did some of the yuan-ti pureblood agents plant the sunken ship solely as a ruse to lure adventurers to the temple? If so, the yuan-ti would be prepared for their arrival. The party would likely be captured and have to escape. That is all well and good, but I imagined an ignorant population of yuan-ti being infiltrated by the investigating PCs, not the other way around.

If the sunken ship was not planted, how does it lead the PCs to the temple? It could be that while searching for the two halves of the map, the bearer of the second half (not the high priest of the coin) was abducted by the yuan-ti. But this implies that the ship was only recently sunk if the PCs' investigation of him lead to the temple.

Perhaps the map-bearer was headed on another adventure that passed by the area of the temple. He was trying to finance an expedition back to the Valley (or just heading to his homeland to put one together) and befell an accident. The PCs then stumble across the machinations of the yuan-ti. But this seems rather haphazard. Even if the map was subsequently found by an adventurer who was then abducted by the yuan-ti, although that is the best choice so far as it directly ties into the yuan-ti "problem" of raiding the countryside for human sacrifices.

I doubt that the yuan-ti happened to build their temple next to the Valley of the Golden Sun but it does now make some sense that they would seek out such a rich and majestic temple as one made from solid gold to welcome their god into this world.

My initial plan was to have the sunken ship contain half the map and cut out the coin priest. However, what if the coin priest was replaced by the yuan-ti. Venkatesh possesses some item or knowledge that is necessary to find the Valley of the Golden Sun. He is either using it for an alternate purpose that fits with his plans (the key to the Valley is also the key to the dimensional gate that will allow his god to enter our world) or he is planning to find and loot the Valley himself (he wants to offer up an incredible tribute to his god when he arrives and the gold of the valley is fitting).

Temple of Venkatesh 4

When I decided to work on the temple, I thought I would do some research. I found a book on Aztec sacrifices at Wowio. It is only 10 pages long (an excerpt or short essay from a larger work) but it gave me a few concrete ideas.

Aztec temples are shaped like stepped pyramids (rather than the smooth pyramid we are familiar with in Egypt). I knew they had stairs on the exterior but I found out that while some temples had one set of stairs up the entire length of the western side (the kind I was picturing in my mind, minus the western detail), most temples alternated their staircases at each level. So the stairs on the ground level went up the western side and then you would have to walk around the edge of the pyramid to the eastern side for the next set of stairs and so on. This allowed for a much longer procession than the single set of stairs and was especially grand when the processors went up two-by-two and split to walk around each side of the temple to the next set of stairs.

Adopting this layout of alternating staircases pushes the PCs through each level of the temple (no climbing straight to the top). And, because it is a yuan-ti temple, the stairs will be moulded ramps. I want the temple to be 5 levels tall at least and the edges of the two lowest levels will be wide enough for full-scale combat.

The top of Aztec temples contained two towers up to 50 feet tall that housed, at their peaks, idols of the god or gods to whom the temple was dedicated. Before these two towers was the large stone altar upon which the sacrifices were made. And flanking the sacrificial stone were braziers that were never allowed to die out. Because the Aztecs had so many temples (most not nearly as grand as the one I am making), their cities glowed at night from the many exposed fires at the tops of the temples.

Following the sacrifice, the body was relinquished to a special warrior who would prepare the meat for a meal to be held within and around the temple. There is no problem with yuan-ti eating the human bodies after sacrifice, so a gruesome kitchen is in order. The bones, particularly the skulls, were then kept in special buildings (more below).

Finally, the scale at which the Aztecs performed their sacrifices was enormous. It was rumored that 70,000 people were sacrificed at the opening dedication of a temple in 1492 in a ceremony that lasted for days. While this number may be exaggerated, a Spanish priest who came to the new world counted 139,000 skulls in one of those special buildings near a large Aztec temple. No one can say how long it took to accumulate them, but the general rule is 1 skull per person.

Here I draw from the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic. In the early 16th century, a monk gathered up the bones of plague victims and those who died in the Hussite war and brought them together in the Sedlec Ossuary. Some time later, an artist was commissioned to use the bones to decorate the ossuary and to fashion them into pieces of art. The masterpiece was a chandelier containing every bone of the human body. There is also the Skull Chapel in Poland (Kudowa-Zdroj, Kaplica Czaszek), where the entire room is covered in skulls and bones with an altar (this time a Catholic altar) at the far end (thankfully the altar and crucifix are standard, rather than bones).

The yuan-ti have an ancillary building specifically for holding the skulls (and maybe other bones) of their sacrifices. I am not yet sure whether the entire building is constructed from the bones of their victims or if it is simply covered with them (and then whether inside or both inside and outside). There would no doubt be a nefarious altar inside as well as the standard evil necromancer yuan-ti and guardians who animate from the very bone-covered walls and ceiling to attack. I do not think I would go so far as to have the entire building animate as one giant skeletal abomination unless I made the entire building out of bone (with no actual wood, stone, or other walls and ceiling underneath).

Temple of Venkatesh 3

I am watching Duck Tales on YouTube these days. I think the opening episodes of the series would make for an interesting series of adventures.

A mysterious old man breaks the Beagle Boys out of jail. In return, he wants them to break into Scrooge's money bin and steal a model ship.

The model ship is actually an ingenious map leading to a sunken ship filled with gold from the Valley of the Golden Sun. The twist is that the ship sank miles inland after sailing over flooded plains during a horrific monsoon season. Following the map proves difficult because it was made using the flooded landscape instead of the dry, desert landscape that normally exists.

The design of the coins in the treasure is familiar only to a few sages who study ancient history. They know the design is from the Valley of the Golden Sun and that the last known appearance of such coins was in a remote mountain village. Traveling to the village reveals that the descendant of one of crewman on the sunken ship lords over the locals thanks to his possession of the Golden Sun coins (revered as religious artifacts by the people there).

This "high priest of the golden sun" possesses his ancestor's half of the map leading to the Valley of the Golden Sun. In the show, he commands the people because he possesses the sole Golden Sun coin until Scrooge shows up with a single coin from the sunken ship. Since two "high priests" are now present, the people follow either one's commands. The high priest demands Scrooge's coin in return for his ancestor's half of the map.

The other half of the map was taken by another of the crewmen from the sunken ship. He decided to leave the remote mountain village and set sail on the open ocean. The currents lead him far south to a frozen tundra. There, he met an ice people who horde all the colored objects they find. His map was confiscated to be put on display in their museum and he was thrown into a prison cell and left to die. Scrooge and company showed up and managed to abscond with the second half of the map.

The map showed the location of the Valley of the Golden Sun. They arrived on a wide caldera ringed with humongous golden disks hanging on the inner lip. Far down below, an ancient, vine covered temple made of solid gold still stood undisturbed. Making their way inside, they were faced with three doors. Behind the first was an endless expanse of golden coins. Behind the second was a similarly endless expanse of gold dust. And behind the third was a solid wall of gold bricks. Opening all three doors, however, trigged a trap that would ultimately destroy the temple.

The volcano below the temple was filled not with magma but with liquid, molten gold. Upon triggering the trap, the golden disks lining the caldera's lip hinged out and reflected the sunlight into the temple and down into the molten gold. The magnified energy of the sunlight caused the liquid gold to boil over as the temple began to crumble. Finally, the caldera fell in on itself, burying the temple and everything else beneath hundreds of feet of rock and earth.


Working from that general outline could be a way to engage players in the Temple of Venkatesh.

Temple of Venkatesh 2

So the big challenge for me is that I have some coolness planned for at the temple but I need to figure out how I am going to get my players there.

I could be cheesy and just have the temple be the entire adventure. The PCs head into the jungle and arrive at the temple after a little wandering. They sneak around, duck inside, make a ruckus, fight Venkatesh, banish the anathema, and then go home.

But I want to be a little bit more involved than that. I want the PCs to find out about the yuan-ti through their machinations in the human world and then go investigate the temple. Basically I want this to play out like 90% of the modules I read. The PCs get involved in plot X, find out about plot Y while resolving X, and then resolve plot Y. I have no idea why this is the formula but why mess with it?

Just wanted to get my goal more clearly stated than in the last post. I need a string of events that bring the PCs to the temple without railroading and without being too obvious yet without being too hidden (at least as they go along; I never want to bring about the feeling of "we're done, what next?" until they destroy the temple).

Yuan-Ti Temple of Venkatesh

I am going to try something here. I want to make an adventure that culminates in discovering and destroying a yuan-ti temple. I am going to document my thoughts and progress here. And, because I know how I want the adventure to end (the temple), I am going to work backwards from there.

The highest ranking bad guy is a yuan-ti anathema (from Fiend Folio), though at CR 18 I doubt I will use it as written but, instead, utilize the idea. The anathema is a 25ft long giant snake body with a humanlike torso, two arms, and six snakes instead of a head. They are incredibly potent psionicists and very evil to boot. In my adventure, the anathema is worshiped as an incarnation of the god Merrshaulk.

Because of the tremendous power that could be attributable to the anathema, I am not sure if it is already present in the temple and being served by the yuan-ti worshipers or if, like in Red Hand of Doom, it is being summoned to this plane and the PCs arrive just in time for its incarnation.

Regardless, the actual big bad guy of the adventure is the high priest of the temple, a massive half-black dragon yuan-ti abomination with class levels (likely cleric but maybe some fighter-type levels thrown in). He wields a huge sword (either a great sword or falchion) and his symbol of office is a wide headdress made from the spines and skulls of his victims arranged peacock-style. Because of his size, the headdress is not unwieldy in normal wear (although it would be difficult to fight in it). This abomination has long been in my villain repertoire but he did not have a name yet. I am calling him Venkatesh (which is actually the name of a colorectal doctor where I live).

The rest of the temple is filled with the more exotic and snakelike yuan-ti cult members. The cultists that can pass for human are often lurking in the human world, accomplishing their leader's goals there. Some human stock are kept as slaves and sacrifices (perhaps even serving as food; have to check what yuan-ti eat).

The temple is going to be designed for snakelike creatures with architecture foreign to legs. When I first thought about this, I thought I was being clever in imagining ramps (with molded curves) and poles, both smooth and "branched", to serve in place of stairways. Then I read their Monster Manual entry and found out both were listed there. My legacy of independently having the same ideas as others lives on.

Another idea I had was to sprinkle traps throughout the temple that activate when stepped on. The yuan-ti, having snake bodies, would slither over the ground without setting off the trap (the snake's weight is distributed over the length of the body on the ground, so it neither pushes directly down on that one particular flagstone like a foot would nor does it exert a body weight's pressure while on the plate like a foot would). Intruders, however, would. This allows me to add traps that affect the players without breaking verisimilitude by leaving players wondering how the yuan-ti get anything done while avoiding all the traps.

That is it for now.

Projects

Once again, moving a comment up:
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I have not yet written anything today due to a few crossword and word puzzles I scrounged up earlier. So, I will quickly detail the actual "projects" on which I am "working."

In a minute, apparently, as I have just been called back out of the breakroom.
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Well, I ended up being out of the breakroom until it was time to leave, so here I am at home. The best part about the following post, in my mind, is the amount of parenthetical comments. Commas and parentheses are two of my favorite and most often used punctuation marks.

These are the two projects, listed in order of current attention:

1. An Iron Heroes one-shot adventure or, more likely, short campaign set in Asgard and inspired by Frostburn, Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations, and the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The PCs are fallen viking warriors who have earned their places in Valhalla (each player will detail the final battle and heroic deeds that earned his character such an honor). An unknown evil sets in motion a plan to bring about Ragnarok. For some convoluted reason I have not yet divined, Odin sends the PCs to investigate and stop the plan. Besides awesome high-level Iron Heroes action (the minimum PC level I am entertaining is 10th, with 15th being a possibility) against such foes as frost giants, white dragons, ice ropers, [plural for remorhaz], and other foes (I plan for the final part to take place in Nifflheim; if it is a short campaign, I want to start elsewhere against non-ice enemies first), the setting itself will stand as an obstacle in their way (I both created my own frostfell terrain and am utilizing some of the hazards presented in Frostburn; I even created hazards that already existed in Frostburn with respect to flavor but with vastly different mechanics (since I was thinking of Iron Heroes and they were thinking of D&D heroes)).

While I do not have the villain's plan all figured out yet (I started with a cool idea and am trying to find a way to get the game there), I am thinking about including a fight with Thor as one of the final challenges. As I detail the plot, I have to restructure the vision (for example, I originally wanted the villain to try and kill Thor but then I decided he was trying to jumpstart Ragnarok and that requires Thor to be alive to play his part in the final battle; the villain's plan relies on Ragnarok progressing exactly as detailed in the prophecies).

2. This project has much less detail than the first because all my attention has been focused on the first. It started much the same way, with a cool idea. I wanted to create an adventure that featured a yuan-ti temple. Not a temple filled with yuan-ti but a temple built and used by yuan-ti. That would mean it was constructed to accommodate their serpentine physiques, with features such as ramps and poles and small circular doors meant for crawling/slithering. This all occurred to me prior to reading the yuan-ti entry in the Monster Manual that mentions just such achitectural features. As with the hazards in Frostburn, I find that I have a lot of ideas in common with others but developed independently (just because the snake features are logical extensions of the yuan-ti physical description does not rob me of the accomplishment of matching the brains of actual game designers).

The big villains of the yuan-ti temple would be the high priest (a half-dragon (black) yuan-ti abomination cleric I created as a villain when the 3.0 MM first came out; he wields a large greatsword and wears a headdress made from the skulls and spines of sacrificial victims) and, perhaps, a toned-down version of the anathema from the Fiend Folio (the anathema is like a giant yuan-ti abomination crossed with a hydra and given super psionic powers).

Again, this is just a cool idea that requires me to craft a story to get the adventure there. Obviously the yuan-ti are going to be doing something evil and rouse the ire and suspicion of the PCs. They investigate the temple deep in the jungle, they kill the high priest, and they put an end to the kidnappings and sacrifices.

I suppose a common thread amongst my adventure ideas is that I do not really put a common thread into my adventures. I do not design adventures around a continous story that weaves throughout the campaign. Instead, I get a cool idea and contrive a story to get the PCs there. I structure my ideas as one-shots so there is no need to put anything before or after the cool idea. The point of the adventure is to trudge through the strange and dangerous locales of Nifflheim or to battle into the heart of a yuan-ti temple to slay the half-dragon high priest before he completes his dark ritual rather than advancing some overarching campaign plot. I guess I read too many stand-alone modules.