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Dungeon Draft October 2020


death tribble

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Waterworld

 

This particular trap was built to discourage intruders. It is a large rectangular room which seems featureless. At intervals water erupts from the floor in a sequence of geysers which can propel anyone atop them into the ceiling with some force. The way through would seem to be enter via the entrance at one end of the rectangle and exit at the other end timing your progress via the geysers. This is definitely not the case. The room is traversed by going less then halfway trough and then going through the side wall through hidden passages.

 

Trying to cross the room activates the trap if anyone or anything goes more than halfway. The room becomes sealed, the geysers activate and the room fills with water. The water will remain long enough to drown anyone in the room before subsiding. Once the water drains water will then blast in geyser like blasts from either side and fill the room again. Once the water drains, the process repeats from the other side before ending with water being blasted down from the ceiling. This guarantees that a large amount of magic must be used to survive in the room and that you cannot secure yourself to wall, floor or ceiling and live. 

Besides the exits on either side are large run offs which suggest that someone worked out that someone could blast their way out of the room and prepared for it accordingly.

At either entrance is a field which dispels magic preventing teleportation and magical flight from being used to cross.

There are drains which might hold debris from previous victims.

Information from sages in the city or advice from the Gods would also help people get through the room.

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You want the truth, you might not be handle to handle the truth !

 

One major reason that people go to all that trouble to visit The Spiral is that there is an oracle located somewhere in the dungeon. Getting to this oracle means getting past death traps, puzzles and monsters and when you get there you can ask questions and get straight answers depending on how the question is asked. The oracle appears to be a female of a particular race but sages have said her appearance varies on who the questioner is and their motives. No amount of force can be used to take the oracle out of the dungeon and that the Gods will punish all those that try.

To make matters even more interesting is that there are supposed to be three false oracles who give false information in the dungeon and that if you have visited one you cannot visit the others through some sort of mystical blindness. Again being in with the Gods or research with the sages in the city nearby will give clues on how to get to the oracle. Phrasing questions correctly is key.

'Where is the Amulet of Athopagus ?' would give the answer 'in a chest on board the ship called Malaka'

'How do I get aboard the ship called Malaka ?' would give the answer 'Seek the protection and advice of the Sea God's priests in the city of Bekkar'

Whereas 'How do I become rich ?' would give the answer 'Work hard or find treasure'

The more nebulous the question the more the oracle can obfuscate.

The oracle will not answer questions ad infinitum as again research with sages or work with churches/temples will let people know how many questions can be asked. There also appears to be a time limit. If a person visits the oracle and gets answers they cannot get more answers until five years have elapsed. Special quests for the Gods, or dispensation from them, can allow a visit before the five year period ends but the need must be great.

 

The Gods will confirm the existence of the oracle and how reliable they cam be but not how to easily get to her. Travel to the city, see the sages, go to the temples and then go down The Spiral to The Door. Willingness to do as bidden and undergo all the trials indicate that the Gods believe that a person can know what they know.

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Paradise Lost

 

This room comes after a number which should have proven to be arduous for the people exploring the dungeon. It has food and water available and plenty of room to relax and sleep and quite obviously is a trap.

Nothing will come near the place although anyone on guard will feel that footsteps or talk will approach but then depart.

If someone eats from the food, drinks from the water and sleeps there they will have a yearning to remain there. The food comes from crops that grow naturally like fruit and vegetables. There are insects, vermin or livestock that can be killed for meat. The water comes from a natural spring. Neither the food nor the water radiate magic so it can come as a rude shock later to find out how dangerous the place can be. Magical spells and clerical magic are not diminished or enhanced here which again would give a clue to the danger.

Anyone leaving will want to return if as stated they have partaken of the food and water in the room and slept there. They may never want to leave at all becoming increasingly irritable and angry if forced. Anyone left behind will drift off in a peaceful slumber that they will never awaken from again. The bodies are absorbed into the room whilst all non-organic possessions are dispersed randomly throughout The Spiral No answer to the fate of comrades will be given while inside the dungeon but asking in the temples outside particularly in the nearby city will give an account of what happens.

Some peculiar form of magic stops any harm from befalling the room and defiling it is not possible.

It is possible to sleep there and not eat or drink and be unaffected.

It is possible to eat there and not sleep or drink and be unaffected

And it is possible to drink there but not eat or sleep and be unaffected.

Consequently some people have been caught out having found out one form of relaxing i.e. eating is ok then they do the other two and are then hexed. Or5 they do one and are ok, do two and are ok and then do the third and are caught out. The effects are also cumulative. It may take awhile but the room can claim a victim.

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Who Built the Dungeon? (Labor Force)

 

Though records of Osorkon's tomb are sparse (for the reasons mentioned earlier), it is quite certain that robots did most of the work, with only a few human engineers supervising. Osorkon liked robots: They would do anything he commanded, without question, fear or hesitation.

 

Mostly he used ordinary automated machinery and autonomous or semi-autonomous weapons, but Osorkon expended great effort on constructing lifelike androids. These were called shabti after the dolls that ancient Egyptians placed in their tombs; these dolls were supposed to magically become servants and laborers for the deceased in the Afterlife. Osorkon used shabti as body doubles to fool assassins... or as spies and assassins, sometimes sending duplicates to replace enemies or people he suspected of treachery. After three centuries, use of life-mimicking androids remains illegal on Rigisamos, the other worlds of Osorkon's empire, and nearby planets.

 

Incidentally, historians believe that at least some of the engineers who worked on Osorkon's tomb -- including some of his most brilliant technicians, drafted from throughout his empire -- never came back. At least, all records of their lives cease.

 

Dean Shomshak

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200604_asteroid.jpg.170c88235b61191bc364c686edf17892.jpg

 

Location 1: The Asteroid Itself

 

The tomb-asteroid is an irregular, oval lump about 5 km along its longest axis, with several large crevasses and craters. Slag and rubble covers large areas of the surface. It's very dark, since it is still so far from Rigisamos' sun.

 

Deep-radar or seismic sounding reveals the asteroid is riddled with small tunnels that interfere with any attempt to scan the interior. Systems Operation at -3 (SS: Mining Engineer is complementary) to infer this interference is more than could be produced by simple mining for raw materials. The interior is shielded.

 

One steep-sided valley holds the pillared terrace of a mortuary temple. Searching this location, partly sunk into the cliff face, reveals the remains of a cryonics lab. At the rear is a concrete plug sealing a large doorway. A hieroglyphic inscription above the doorway warns: DEATH SHALL COME ON SWIFT WINGS FOR WHOEVER DISTURBS THE SLEEP OF THE PHARAOH.

 

Beyond the doorway is a pillared hall. Wall niches hold golden statues of falcons with jewel eyes. At the far end, six-meter seated statues of Osorkon flank another doorway sealed with concrete.

 

If anyone disturbs the far doorway, the falcons animate. They fly out of the chamber, propelled on plasma jets, to seek the intruders' spaceship. They attack the spaceship with lasers from their eyes, concentrating on the drive. If necessary, they fly up an engine vent (or whatever vulnerable, exposed spot the [ropulsion system may have) to explode, crippling the ship.

 

Moments after the flacons fly out, the claymore mines in the concrete plug and in the walls explode. Even if intruders aren't killed outright, this certainly shreds any spacesuit that isn't well armored. Someone who is very quick might dive for the floor to avoid the worst of the blast. Then they are merely stranded on an airless asteroid with a possibly punctured space suit.

 

This isn't even the real tomb. It's a decoy. The entrance to the real tomb is on another part of the asteroid, hidden beneath meters of clinker and rock chips, but detectable by  thorough radar search. Once you clear away the rubble, a concrete slab blocks a shaft descending a kilometer into the asteroid. No stairs, but that doesn't matter in the microgravity.

 

Dean Shomshak

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<Bows> I should hope so.

 

Addendum: That is, the would-be tomb robbers are stranded or dead if they didn't have the sense to take simple precautions, such as only sending remote-controlled machines into the tomb chamber, or keeping backup transportation.

 

If they weren't quite smart enough, they still might have a way to reach an orbiting ship despite losing a ship's boat or shuttlecraft. Two of the robot falcons don't activate. (Whaddaya want, they are well made robots, shielded and in vacuum, but they *are* still 300 years old.) Salvage the two damaged falcons and use Inventor or Electronics to activate the plasma jets. They provide enough thrust to escape the asteroid's weak gravity. Just be sure you've done your sums right to intercept your ship's orbit.

 

This decoy tomb is just Osorkon's way of screening his callers, as it were. Kill the stupid, and warn anyone smart enough to survive that he's serious about protecting his tomb.

 

Dean Shomshak

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So why was The Spiral created ?

The position was ideal being an extinct volcano and it is of some size. A mage of unsurpassed power wanted a place away from the teeming masses and so began creating a lair out of the mountain. He wanted to make life difficult for anyone visiting him so he put various enchantments on the region and on The Door which he hoped would stop over 99% of any visitors. The mage would then have extensive areas to conduct magical research and to live in relative quiet. What the mage failed to take into account was the proximity of underwater realms and those beings who wanted to interface with them in all sorts of ways.

The mage found people coming to his home just to trade with underwater beings without going into the sea and then straight down. So he put in several traps to eliminate them to no avail.

Finally he left and removed his identity from all records so that no-one would bother him anymore. The Gods seized their chance and a devout cleric was tasked with expanding and improving the are for the benefit of the pantheon he served. It was he who brought the oracle to The Spiral and found them a new home there. Then he set up the false oracles and with divine aid set up the only safe way to get to The Spiral. The port was in its early stages and the cleric began laying the foundations for temples there and the knowledge sages would need regarding the dungeon. He then left to spread knowledge which would lead people there. The Gods decided to make the cleric nameless in the same way as the mage was in order to thwart certain beings from gaining knowledge.

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The Chamber of 1,000 Deaths

 

This vast room has all sorts of mechanical traps and could be described as a wet dream for Edgar Allan Poe. There are pits with spikes at the bottom, pits with spikes on the walls and the bottom, swinging pendulums with axe blades, swing pendulums with bludgeons, walls that crush together slowly, walls that crush together rapidly and presses that impact the floor with some velocity. There are also ghostly figures that can be seen who appear to have been killed by various of the traps.

From whichever entrance one reaches the chamber, an exit cannot be seen unless one enters the room which would subject them to one or more of the traps. Attempting to disable of destroy the traps results in fire, ice and electricity being directed at the person responsible.

The most common reaction to the chamber is for people to give up and try another way to go around. Only someone with superb agility could dare hope to traverse the room, avoiding the traps and thence to another exit. However there are two ways to go through the room.

One is along the ceiling in gaps where some of the traps are set up and it is a narrow crawl way. It can take some time to go through but it is safe as long as someone can reach the roof and get into the crawl way.

The second way was created by some people who managed to dig a tunnel linking various of the pits but not all of them which means one must go down into a pit and then find the tunnel.

Some of the ghost that are seen are just illusions created by the mage. Others are a phantasm effect which can hurt a person if they are not careful. However some are real ghosts who will try and get the people entering the room into the traps.

 

The room can be avoided altogether but is a quick route between important areas so its importance cannot be underestimated.

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Addendum to the Addendum: I also forgot to mention the two large ion engines stuck onto the asteroid, that were used to push it into its long orbit. They might come up later.

 

Why Was It Built?

 

Well, duh. It's a tomb.

 

No... not "Well, duh." If Osorkon just wanted a safe place for his corpse and a bunch of loot, he could have just drilled a shaft into an asteroid and filled it in afterward. But Egyptian royal tombs weren't just tombs. The mummification of the body, the spells on the walls and nested coffins, the amulets, canopic jars and assorted bric-a-brac formed a magical working to translate the dead king into the Afterlife and make him divine. He might join the supreme sun-god Ra on the Boat of Millions of Years, or merge with the god Osiris, ruler of the dead.

 

To reach such blessed states, the dead Pharaoh had to traverse the 12 caves of Duat -- the underworld of the dead. Every night, the god Ra sails through this Underworld in his passage from dusk to dawn. The 12 caves (one for each hour of the night) hold their own gods, spirits, guardians, monsters and perils.

 

Osorkon built his own Duat: the 12 main chambers of his tomb imitate the 12 caves -- including some of the dangers, as best he could represent them, as a hedge against tomb-robbers. For extra security, though, he added false doors, side passages and entire decoy tombs. Explorers who know their Egyptian myth and religion might avoid some of the traps and decoys... but not all.

 

The other sample locations will be particular chambers (or small groups of chambers) from the tomb. Since we are asked for only 5 sample locations, I won't describe all 12 "caves."

 

Dean Shomshak

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The Builders

 

The Mage who built The Spiral used his own magical servants to construct the dungeon. These were beings of iron and stone who had no will of their own and could therefore continue with a task until it was complete or they were ordered to stop. He also designed an orb which he could consult to see how architects had designed certain chambers which he could then adapt and add traps to.

However as he built one way, outside forces encroached with local underwater beings building into the area that the volcano once covered. The mage found this annoying and set various anti-marine obstacles to stop any further incursions into his home. 

The road to the dungeon and the way down were built by merchants who discovered the undersea realms had cities nearby and they could trade with them.

After the mage had departed the cleric who brought the oracle to The Spiral used divine aid to furnish living quarters for the oracle and the three false oracles. Some mebers of the same religion also helped expand certain areas but they never had anything to do with the oracles.

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Since Death Tribble posted "Waterworld" on Sunday, I'll assume the "weekends off" rule is void. Good thing, because there's no way I finish this tonight and Monday.

 

Anyway: The "Twelve Caves of Duat" plan means there's no pure exploration in this dungeon. The Lost Tomb of the Galactic Pharaoh is  grinder an essentially linear dungeon of one threat after another, with no way to skip ahead to the end, as your resources for staying alive are whittled down. There may be a time limit, too, since most of the dungeon is in vacuum and the PCs might no longer have a ship where they can rest and recuperate.

 

For an example, the Third Cave of Duat is the center of a small set of rooms. After the Second Cave (the abode of the Weary Ones), there's a small, bare chamber that seems to exist for no purpose but to punctuate a change in direction of the stairs leading further into the asteroid. Actually there are some secret closets holding white robes.

 

The stairs lead down to a wider hallway. The walls are painted with murals of white-robed priests escorting the Sun-Boat, with panegyrics about how Osorkon has joined the crew of Ra on his journey through the Afterlife.

 

The walls hold a microwave motion-detection sensor system. The microwaves are emitted in very brief pulses, so it takes a Systems Operation roll even to detect them -- and at -3 if you aren't deliberately searching. The system lets people go forward, but anyone going back faster than a dignified pace triggers an electromagnetic pulse that can burn out electronics (Penetrating 1d6 RKA, Area of Effect).

 

The hallway ends in a large room. Eight sarcophagi are spaced around the other three sides of the room. The center holds a large pool of yellowish plasma "fire." Around the raised lip is a hieroglyphic inscription that helpfully labels it as the Lake of Fire Where Sinners Are Thrown. And sure enough, as soon as anyone enters who isn't wearing one of the white robes, the sarcophagi open and out shamble eight robot mummies -- actual mummified corpses rendered animate by simple exoskeletons -- looking a bit like this:

ROBOMUMMY.thumb.GIF.6e790866783eb374bb2d3de40568a539.GIF

The mummies try to grab intruders and throw them into the plasma pool, which starts burning much hotter. Meanwhile, the mummies start broadcasting on whatever radio communication channel the characters use, groaning they they are enemies of mighty Osorkon, defeated and forced to serve him even beyond death. with biographical details. They don't shut up until they are destroyed or everyone is dead or fled.

 

A locked door leads to another hallway, with more murals and panegyrics, ending in a doorway sealed with concrete. This concrete, however, is a trap. Below the surface half-centimeter, it;s impregnated with vesicles of hydrofluoric acid. Drilling or blasting through releases a spray of the ultra-corrosive acid to destroy machines, spacesuits, and unwary PC. (And no, it doesn't help if you drill around the plub to enter from the side: There's a layer of the acid-spraying concrete all around the tomb, including top and bottom.) Beyond that, however, is Osorkon's tomb!

 

Well, not really. It's one of the decoys. The body inside the three coffins (marble, gilded steel and what's essentially a fancy Dewar flask for liquid nitrogen, keeping the body frozen) is of one of Osorkon's living body doubles, and the treasures aren't nearly as valuable as they seem.

 

There's also a secret door out of the room, leading to a narrower hallway. This leads to another chamber with another doorway guarded by two statues of Set and Horus, the Guardians of Night and Day, which shoot lasers from their ankhs. Get pas them and you can go down the stairs to another chamber... and trip the piston-driven concrete block that seals off the stairway. The terminal chamber holds a cabinet with doses of a lethally potent, fast acting sedative labeled "Osorkon's Mercy."

 

No, to reach the Fourth Cave you have to find the more secret door. There's also a hieroglyphic prayer wriiten inside the plasma pool's rim, partially obscured by the ersatz flames. Along with various other gods and spirits it includes the name of the gatekeeper of the Third Cave -- the clue that the pool is the real exit. While the pool is at its normal mild temperature (i.e., the mummies aren't active, either because everyone wore white robes or they were all destroyed), someone has to get into the pool (which is about 3 meters deep) and find the plasma emitter engraved with the password to get past the gatekeeper. Turn this, and part of the pool's floor opens, revealing another shaft. Twist an emitter marked with other nonsense words, and the pool gets hot again. So you'd better have brought your database of Egyptian/Rigisaman religion.

 

Dean Shomshak

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So what other of the Twelve Caves should be described? The holographic paradise (with traps) of the Field of Reeds? The dark House of Seker (with traps)? The cave of the Binding of Apep?

 

Pfft. Take it as read, they all have various traps and challenges. Let's just skip to the end, or ends.

 

So the intrepid tomb-looters have fought their way passed the robot guardians and survived all the traps. Everything from the classic spiked pit trap (with artificial gravity to pull victims down... or up... or sideways) to curtains of taut monofilament that can slice through armor, or drones that try to plant worm programs in their computer systems. Plasma blasts. Lasers. Metal cables that try to snag people and pull them into "iron maiden" sarcophagi with whirling drill bits. Acid, Caches or poisoned air tanks and field rations. So many traps. But they have passed the Lake of Nun, so they must be near the end.

 

The long gallery is labeled the passage to the Dawn. On one side, the murals show the Sun-Boat escorted by gods holding stars, and Ra has assumed the form of the scarab-god Khepri. The other side is illustrated with scenes and boasts of Osorkon's greatness: "I, Osorkon, King of Kings, conquered the nations of New Geneva." "I, Osorkon, favored of Amun-Ra, built the great canal from Lake Amida to New Thebes." Behold how Osorkon, Pharoah of the Galaxy, received tribute from a dozen worlds." And so on. The doors at the far end are inscribed, "Bow your head in prayer and disturb not the rest of Osorkon, Pharoah of the Stars, who now reigns as Osiris, Pharaoh of the Gods."

 

The metal door is welded shut and must be cut or blasted open. Behind it is another door that merely had a metal plate welded over its mechanical lock's keyhole. The electric trap triggered by sticking a probe in the lock is almost perfunctory. The third and last door merely has an electronic lock with a keypad. And then one enters the tomb.

 

The most notable feature is the 10-meter long model of the Sun-Boat, apparently wrought of solid gold. A rack on the boat holds regalia (pshent, nemyss and battle crown, crook and flail, pectoral, shoulder holster, etc.) all executed in enameled gold, platinum and gems. Cabinets along the walls display other treasures. Light comes from statues in the corners, of men with human, ape, jackal and falcon heads; they hold torches with brilliant plasma flames. Metal doors lead to long, narrow chambers whose shelves bear a small museum's worth of art treasures -- everything from a lost landscape painted by Tsang Hai to the Golden Turd of Grrm.

 

The Sun-Boat carries a closed golden shrine. The doors aren't locked, but opening them triggers nerve disruptors in the statues, filling the chamber and killing everyone who isn't electromagnetically shielded. (The shrine interior is protected.) It only fires once. Inside is a gold-plated concrete sarcophagus flanked by refrigeration equipment and a nuclear battery. Inside that is a golden coffin, and inside that a Dewar-flask coffin (as in the earlier false tomb). The liquid nitrogen surrounds the body of an old man, visibly ravaged by disease. They have found Osorkon. Lying atop the inmost coffin is a scroll with a plea to revive him when a cure has been found for his particular type of cancer, and also a cure for old age.

 

The Sun-Boat really is mostly solid gold, with some steel supports. It's easily worth hundreds of millions of credits just for the metal. The art treasures are harder to judge, but the total value could easily top a billion credits.

 

Except... Explorers who've paid attention should be suspicious. They haven't seen the Hall of the Negative Confession, one of the most important scenes of the Underworld, in which the dead person lists the sins he never committed. The "Hall of Boasting" is not an orthodox replacement.

 

An autopsy of the body reveals the truth. It's another of Osorkon's body doubles. It's a very good body double: Osorkon's cancer was transplanted into him before he was killed. But this tomb is nevertheless another fake.

 

A billion-credit fake.

 

Osorkon was a megalomaniac, and in some ways a religious fanatic. But he wasn't stupid crazy. What could be in his real tomb that's worth a billion credits to hide?

 

Dean Shomshak

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4th Location: Hall of the Negative Confession

 

If the explorers figured out how to link someone's mind to a ba-bird in the 10th cave and used it to obtain transport through the Sea of Nun, they've reached the entrance to the 11th cave: the Hall of the Negative Confession. This long gallery has air and gravity. After the initial 3-meter vestibule, the floor is tiled in alternating, 2-meter bands of black and white tile -- 42 in all. The walls and ceiling of each section hold a dozen muzzles of plasma guns. An inscription on the floor before the first band warns that the confessor may pass, but anyone who tamper with judgment will be destroyed. The warning is no lie. Every plasma emitter is set to go off and fill the entire hall with white-hot plasma if any one of them is tampered with. The gallery ends in a metal door with a glass circle in the center. Statues flank the far door: The god Thoth, holding a scales with a feather in one pan and a stylized human heart in the other; and the monster Ammet, part hippopotamus and part crocodile, that waits to eat the heart of anyone who fails Thoth's judgment.

 

When someone steps into each band, they have one turn in which to recite the appropriate Negative Confession, listing all the 42 sins they have not committed. IE, "I have not stolen. I have not murdered. I have not cheated on my taxes." And so on. Since the Rigisaman version of the Negative Confession was in one of the murals earlier in the tomb, this should be no problem.

 

Failure to recite the appropriate Negative Confession results in the incineration of everyone in that 2-meter section of hallway. Anyone who thinks they can just sprint forward finds themselves running into wall after wall of plasma -- the computers controlling the emitters react in milliseconds.

 

Successful confessors reach the final 3-meter section, with the statues and the large double-doors. These doors are starship hull metal, impregnable to anything less than industrial particle beams that cannot possibly be carried in through the passages of the tomb. Trying to damage the meter-wide disk of armored glass results in plasma filling the entire hall, cooking everyone. An inscription warns that the wise and pious can pass to the Gates of Dawn, but the blasphemer shall die.

 

The disk of translucent glass is divided into three concentric rings and 36 sectors, each bearing a different symbol or hieroglyph:

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This is a lock. Pressing the correct symbol makes that plate glow. the three concentric circles of glyphs spin, then the glowing plate sinks down and the doors open to reveal... an identical set of metal doors, only with one glyph-plate lit. There are 12 doors in all. To open them, one must press the glyphs that represent the 12 caves of Duat. With each correct symbol chosen, the circles spin again and the chosen glyphs sink to become part of the next disk, until the final door opens. Some doors have symbols that didn't appear in earlier doors.

 

The 12 symbols are:

1st cave: A baboon;

2nd cave: Reclining figure;

3rd cave: Flames;

4th cave: Osiris hieroglyph;

5th cave: Papyrus reed;

6th cave: A reclining jackal;

7th cave: A hawk-headed mummy;

8th cave: Falcon hieroglyph;

9th cave: Sword hieroglyph;

10th cave: Ba-bird;

11th cave: The feather of Maat;

12th cave: Scarab beetle (Ra as Khepri, who rolls the sun into the sky).

 

Narually, pressing the wrong symbol activates the plasma projectors, The tomb raiders aren't directly in the superheated plasma, but the final section gets very hot, very fast. Even if the characters then find the correct symbol, each door takes 6 segments to open., and the door won't recognize the next attempt to press a symbol until 6 segments after pressing the previous one. Thus, jabbing at symbols quickly doesn't work.

 

The "Map Room" music from Raiders of the Lost Ark would be appropriate at this point, though the "Chamber of Secrets" track from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets could be an adequate substitute.

 

Dean Shomshak

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5th Location: The True Tomb

 

The 12th door opens on a gigantic chamber, at least 100 meters wide and high. There's air and gravity. A wide section of the metal floor slowly irises open. Up rises a hugwe bird made of flame, on a platform that turns so the bird faces the door. The holographic flames fade to reveal a gilded star-yacht. Beneath the nose of the star-yacht stands a middle-aged Black woman in a lab coat.

 

The woman nods politely and says, "Welcome. I am the simulation of Dr. Julia Mbenge, chief science advisor to His Majesty Osorkon II, and architect of this tomb complex. You must be very intelligent or very persistent to have made it this far. And while I do want to know why you have come, I must also ask you -- beg you -- to leave. You may take whatever treasures you want from this tomb. Just go."

 

Side-chambers of the tomb hold enough jewels, bullion, and art treasures to make every tomb raider a billionaire, if only it coult be transported out. Doctor Mbenge suggests a few extraordinary and portable treasures, such as the Precursor artifacts. If the characters ask why she wants them to go, or what she's doing there in the first place, Dr. Mbenge assumes a lecturer's pose and tone.

 

She recounts how the ancient Egyptians regarded their tombs as, in a sense, machines for turning a dead king into an immortal god. Modern science has duplicated and surpassed many feats of myth and legend. When her master knew he must die, he asked Dr. Mbenge to realize this ancient myth as well. To cheat death and make him an immortal god. And this she has done.

 

"This is not a tomb. This is not a monument to vanity or superstition. It is a laboratory for a great experiment, the ultimate dream of cybernetics: To copy a human brain, a human mind, onto a computer."

 

This was thought impossible. True intelligence is too fluid for any scanning system to map. The brain and mind change constantly. And even with the ost precise and advance neural mapping, it would take centuries to map every connection of every neuron. But a frozen brain does not change; and the long orbit of the asteroid gave Osorkon the necessary centuries.

 

The simulation is now complete. The final checks began six years ago. Testing was accelerated once the tomb was disturbed, but seems robust. More time would be appreciated, but if the intruders will not take their bribe and go, Osorkon can live again... now.

 

A panel slides aside to reveal a side-chamber shielded by armored glass. A close-fitting Dewar coffin holds Osorkon's body in liquid helium. A ceramic cap covers his head, with cables connecting it to consoles about the room. A powerful, red-skinned android body -- image of the god Osiris --sits on a throne, more cables plugging into its head. The cables detach; a robot arm places a nuclear battery in the figure's chest, which closes and seals; and the golden, plumed crown of a god descends onto the figure's head. The figure blinks, stirs, stands.

 

OSORKON.thumb.GIF.b34ed1e0e9c8edf1d1ad16a644db26c9.GIF

There's more, but it's late. I hope I may be allowed to finish this tomorrow morning. In brief, though:

 

Who's In Charge: The shabti of Dr. Mbenge.

Mythic Monster/Guardian: Osorkon. And he's pretty damn tough.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

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Mythic Monster/Guardian: Osorkon

 

The android Osorkon demands that the characters prostrate themselves in worship and pledge their fealty to him, or he will kill them. If they obey, he will try to kill them anyway, while he can get in a free shot or two.

 

His android body is superhumanly strong and extremely resistant to damage (at least compared to whatever weapons the PCs managed to get through the tech-destroying traps in the tomb or pick up along the way, such as the swords and nets from the Binding of Apep). His crown can fire laser beams, because why not. He also has the shabti Dr. Mbenge and about 20 robot guards, variously armed, that troop out from a side chamber to assist him. Their weapons are dangerous to living people but not to androids, such as hypervelocity poison needles or nerve stunners.

 

OTOH the PCs have a formidable weapon at hand, if they think to use it and can buy time for one of their number to activate it. The star-yacht isn't locked, and it has powerful lasers and plasma engine exhaust. But it does take some time to figure out the centuries-old controls and power it up.

 

If the PCs can destroy Osorkon, Dr. Mbenge sadly says, "Well, that was a waste of three centuries' work. Though it was good to prove my theory." Then the android explodes. So do the computers in the tomb chamber. No one shall learn the secrets of Dr. Mbenge.

 

Searching through the side chambers and the hangar, victorious characters not only find the rest of Osorkon's art collection, they find find other treasures:

* Several nuggets of strange matter and other products of hyphernuclear engineering, used in star drives, long-lasting nuclear batteries and other advanced technologies. Maybe even a magnetic monopole.

* The Treasury of Worlds: Scale models of Rigisamos, the other major planets in its system, and the planets that paid tribute to Osorkon, executed in enameled platinum and gems. They contiain voice-controlled computers and holographic projectors to provide GoogleMaps-style views of any location on each planet (as of 3 centuries ago). Just the thing for a megalomaniac conqueror to gloat over.

* A rack of cryochambers holding Osorkon's top techs, frozen so they could be revived to serve their risen master once more. However, the chamber for the real Dr. Mbenge is empty. Forensic examination shows Dr. Mbenge was automatically revived some weeks ago. But they won't find her in the tomb complex now...

* Plus there's the star-yacht, the Bennu, still working and a top-quality starship despite its centuries of storage.

 

How did Osorkon get the starship into the tomb? He built the tomb around it. How did he plan to get out? That's a little more complucated.

 

It is possible the characters flee from the risen Osorkon. He lets them. As they leave the tomb, however, they find the asteroid abuzz with activity. Remember all those little radar-distorting tunnels that riddle the asteroid? They're occupied. During the centuries in deep space, robots were slowly mining through the asteroid for raw materials to build more robots. When the characters entered the tomb, the android Dr. Mbenge initiated their next program: building weapons and transport. By the time the asteroid reached the inner planetary system, Osorkon was going to have a robot army, on an asteroid reconstructed into a battle station, complete with launch bay for the Bennu. As the characters emerge, the robots are already rebuilding the ion drives into powerful ion cannons. If they don't leave soon, they won't be able to.

 

The Galactic Pharaoh intends to reclaim his empire! Or at least Rigisamos. But that would be a different story arc: Return of the Galactic Pharaoh.

 

There. I'm done.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Aw shucks, I'm blushin'...

 

This is the first I've heard of National Novel Writing Month. For "Lost Tomb of the Galactic Pharaoh," I just dipped into my 40-year backlog of adventures played and planned. (I still have smeary pencil mss. of dungeons I designed in high school for AD&D. Throw nothing away, there may be an idea you can use later.)

 

But thank you. Though vide your hope when you entered the Draft. this time you can truly say that no entry got more votes than yours!

 

Dean Shomshak

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