Hereticwerks: Sewers and Cellars of Wermspittle (Encounter Table III)

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Sewers and Cellars of Wermspittle (Encounter Table III)

Then came the locked cellar door, and the search for something to break it down. A heavy stool stood near, and its tough seat was more than enough for the antique panels. A crack formed and enlarged, and the whole door gave way—but from the other side; whence poured a howling tumult of ice-cold wind with all the stenches of the bottomless pit, and whence reached a sucking force not of earth or heaven, which, coiling sentiently about the paralysed detective, dragged him through the aperture and down unmeasured spaces filled with whispers and wails, and gusts of mocking laughter...

The Horror at Red Hook, by H. P. Lovecraft

Sewer and Cellar Encounters Table III (D30)

Six barrels of Spectral Brine have been roughly pushed up against the far wall. They are leaking. The muck at your feet faintly glows and you're already feeling sick.
There is a small (6' diameter) Maelstrom swirling at the center of this muddy, mucky-floored cellar. Only the whirlpool is on the ceiling. Every ten minutes the Maestrom's sucking force grows stronger and stronger until, after the third hour it is creating something of an inverted/reverse hurricane. Then it settles down to a light draught once again. The cycle is a bit erratic. The tenants above have barred the door to keep anyone else from getting taken away by the violent winds this thing causes.
A small, possibly immature Yoggidam packed in some kind of brine inside a heavy glass jar. Someone's specimen? A torn messenger-bag, a scuffed-up pair of airship-mechanic's goggles (left lens is missing), and some incidental trash gives the impression that a Forager may have hid out here not long ago. Perhaps they left the jar behind by accident?
Congratulations. Right there in the muck nearest your good right foot there's a Dread Penny staring right back up at you. Don't mind the half-dissolved gas mask and the six empty carboys labelled 'sulfurick acid.' It's probably safe to pick it up...
There must be at least twenty penguin carcasses hanging from the beams overhead. All of them skinned, salted and smoked...and sprouting the wriggly green tendrils of some pernicious and vicious form of fungi. This is why the Tsalalians prefer to use attics.
Three, perhaps four bodies are crumpled and curled up along the left-hand wall. Each one is covered in the distinctive gritty-sooty residue left behind by Black Smoke.
They were doing some work up above, renovating the old place. Then the floor collapsed and everything fell down here, into the basement. Three of the workers might have survived, if they hadn't been locked in here. With the rats. You might not see them right away. You might not even hear them immediately. Stick around and you will meet them soon enough. There are hundreds of rats running around in the warrens surrounding this basement. Their incessant digging has weakened the foundations of several buildings next to this one.
Seven circles of heavy translucent moon-metal chains encircle a trapped Insectillar. The chains are anchored into the floor with six-foot spikes of hardened greenbrass. You're about two steps away from awakening the guardians--the creature weakly informs you through its heavily suppressed telepathy.
A section of the ceiling has been compromised by the runners and shoots of some sort of Red Weeds. This particular infestation is still quite fresh and very vulnerable. The leaves are streaked with pale blotches of orange and there are pulsing, bulbous growths dangling form the ceiling that resemble mandrakes crossed with lumpy potatoes. Should you burn it or call some experts?
The floor is flooded to a depth of just under four feet. There are blind catfish swimming about. You've just surprised a pair of kids who were fishing. They're climbing through a window that is only partly boarded-over. One of them dropped their pole. A large fish is dragging it along the rubble and gravel slope that used to be the lower part of the wall near the entry-window.
Something, or someone, is watching you. It's exceedingly dark in here, possibly because of a spell. It reeks of moldy persimmons. Some merchant caravan has used this cellar for storage the last two summers. Something else has taken up residence while they're gone. Three Morlock runes have been scraped deep into the limestone above an old door that has been cut in half and fitted over the bolt-hole in one of the back corners. It is locked. With poison needles still sticking out of the mechanism from the last intruder's unsuccessful attempt to gain entry.
A pair of Grunters are playing some form of gambling-game with the hacked-apart finger-sections of some previous intruder. One of them carries an air-tight greenbrass tube that holds a rolled-up map to a series of three captured Weak Points that will take you to the outer perimeter of the most recent base of operations for their Queen-General's main army. The passwords are scrawled next to each of the Weak Point symbols, against all regulations and orders. You might have heard a few whispers or rumors that Idvard might be interested in something like this...and he has a good reputation for being generous to those who bring him things he wants or needs. The other Grunter, a corporal blind in one eye, wears a black iron ring that can be used to call forth a wall of tangled, burning black iron blades and spikes directly from Kalkendru that will persist in its bilocation for one hour before collapsing into the space it has been summoned into (20%), or back into Kalkendru (70%)...or just simply disappearing into some indeterminate non-space (10%), possibly taking along anything/anyone unfortunate enough to be entangled within it. The ring works once a day and costs the used 1d4 hit points to activate. It is meant to hurt. It also has three other functions, but those are unknown to the corporal.
There is a layer of curdled mud covering the floor to a depth of 4 inches. There are traces of the mud extending up the walls for more than three feet. The carcass of a dead crocodile lies twisted-up in a painful looking manner just out of the mud in what must have been its death throes. It appears to have been digging into the base of the far wall. That section has partially collapsed. Trapping the beast's head under a heavy pile of stones, bricks and blocks. Removing the debris will re-flood the basement. The crocodile is slightly squirmy to the touch--its insides are filled with maggots and eggs about to erupt into a swarm of cellar flies.
The good right arm of an Iron Pig lies in the middle of the floor.
A scratched, pitted and slightly dented Hexagon of Bohz lies partly embedded in the floor. It was improperly prepared. A casual inspection will readily reveal the shoddy workmanship. Polyps are unforgiving; they also have very high standards.
Three feet past the door everything is blocked-off by the dried-out form of a massive, gigantic Gunpowder Grub packed with well over 43 tons of unstable gunpowder. Please tell me that you're not using torches with an open flame...
Someone's wine cellar. Left over from better days. The entire space is infested with purple-spotted spiders. Hordes of the things. Past the third set of wine bottles in their racks you can see multiple cocoon-like masses dangling from the ceiling. One might even be writhing a bit. Are they victims or massive egg-sacs? From here you can't really tell...
Bubbles? Yes. There's an Orb Cluster trapped down here because there are no Weak Points available to it, and all the Ley-Lines in the area have been somehow re-routed or blocked. How is that possible?
Sixteen bales of moldy Yellow Wallpaper were stored down here right before the place up above was burned-out due to arson. Everyone blames a gang of Feral Children. Perhaps it was a Yellow Kid or a Creeper that escaped from the Wallpaper instead? Maybe it doesn't matter. Whoever did the arson is long gone. The bales of this horrid stuff are still here. How do you dispose of it?
Three arrows tipped with Yirgao-teeth. One has blood on the fletchings, which are harpy-feathers.
Either that's a Sallow Stain, a Loathsome Mass or a Wet Spot that is seeping into this space over by the right wall.
She might have been pretty. Before. Now she's a real mess. Those kids didn't leave much of her personal possessions behind after they stripped her corpse. Just the Gore Worms breeding in her heavily distended belly. There are a few blood-soaked maps, a half-burned atlas, and a small pocket notebook left in her torn-apart belt pack. The pocket notebook contains numerous references to someone named 'Bujilli.' She was sent here by her older sister. A Zurian Princess.
A deserter made this space into a decent little home-away-from-the-Ramparts, up until the Takers caught up with him. There are (1d4) cans of pickled meat and some penguin-jerky (spoiled) behind the over-turned end table. There is also a Hole in the Wall that you might want t take a closer look at...
Pods. Six, child-sized pods of some wrinkly, almost scrotum-like plant material, split down the middle, flecked and speckled with a pungent off-white foam that reeks of rancid parsley. They're empty.
Someone has piled-up forty-three rolls of sod in this space. All of it is dried-out now.
A broken guitar. The strings have been removed. With a dull knife.
The deal went bad. A panicked Eloi in fishscale armor tries to force their way past you. They botched their attempt to work out an arrangement with the Withering Mist behind them.

Jusgat de la Vardin [Eloi, AL N, MV 100' (30'), AC 6 (fish-scale caster-armor), HD 3, #AT 1, DG 1d4+poison (glass dagger filled with arsenic), SV MU3, ML 4, (Spells per day: 2,1) Level One: Hammer Toe, Needle-Fling, Shield, Sleep. Level Two: ESP, Kazwen's Reflections, Knock.] They left their scroll of Call Withering Mist behind.
A lilac and almond striped disk of pressed-chitin embossed with the twenty-seven characters of the click-speech of Nhor. Successfully reading the disk, even to oneself, summons a 4 HD War Grub.
The gnawed femur-bone of an Almas. Each end is wrapped tightly in sinew and braided hair over a cap of thick felt. There is a swarm trapped inside it. You'll need to open it to find out what kind...
Six feet deep. The piles of dead frogs are six feet deep in here...

Sewers & Cellars: Encounters Table I | Sewers & Cellars: Encounters Table II
Sewers & Cellars: Encounters Table III | Sewers & Cellars: Encounter Table IV

Local Authorities: Cellar Inspectors in Wermspittle
Making the Prinn Street Rounds | Beneath Suydum Blvd | The Butler Street Station
Cellar Inspectors: PreGen Characters

Wermspittle Index