Baalshamoth’s Altar
Campaign or Scenario Role
Creepy mastermind behind certain factions within the megadungeon, plots to reach beyond once the proper tool is found.
Theme
Alien source of knowledge, though the price is often misunderstood.
Threat
Working to provoke chaos in the world through application of (mis)information. Trying to find the strongest ally locally (by pitting various factions in the megadungeon against each other) to make use of outside the megadungeon.
Reward
Forgotten, forbidden knowledge, always factual but rarely trustworthy.
Relationships
- Aristothanes visits primarily for the Athaneum, placing perhaps too much trust in the written word.
- Shalthazard prowls the Misty Reaches and toys with the minds of the dreamers.
- The Scholar Lieutenant from the Aboleth Conclave Outpost visits via the Pool of Shrouded Futures to see what may become.
- Some of the Misshapen have turned to Baalshamoth to learn how to escape their fate.
- The Leader of the Pack has been studying the word of Baalshamoth, seeking power over his former tribe.
Description and Identification
Description
Lit by flickering, unnatural purple lights that make right-thinking people queasy. Cool and surprisingly dry, air filled with dry mist that limits vision and scatters the purple light. Room upon room filled with mouldering books, defaced hieroglyphs, and other degraded knowledge. Nevertheless, with proper guidances the desired facts can be found.
Signature
Information that is factually correct yet may be horribly misleading. ‘Definitive’ books that contain information that supports the (correct) holder, with contradictory material removed, elided, or otherwise unreadable.
Location
Below the Abandoned Tower.
Mechanics
No actual mechanics yet, but I’ll include notes for later.
- Oneiromancium: Rooms of creatures in perpetual slumber, exploring the mysteries that are Baalshamoth.
- Misty Reaches: Physical representation of the dreamers’ journey; dreamers go here when their explorations have reached an end. The evident source of the mists that permeate the Fane.
- Mirror of Shrouded Futures: Murky pools that reflect visions unlike others, rather than the world around the pool.
- Bastion of Secrets: Sacrificial chambers and torture rooms. Some overlap with the Hall of Instruction, where specialized instruction is needed.
- Oubliette: prison for those to be sacrificed, or just to be held for the pleasure of the Sharer of Knowledge.
- Scriptorium: hall full of scribes, feverishly copying tomes and scrolls, or creating new ones.
- Fane of Baalshamoth: black stone altar with an everburning purple flame representing Baalshamoth, plus supporting chambers.
- Hall of Instruction: training area, both physical and mental exercise rooms. Failures go the Bastion of Secrets or the Path of the Shattered.
- Path of the Shattered: a place of wretched moaning and anguish, as those too weak for the Purple Flame leave the Fane, or the Misshapen enter the Fane seeking empowerment
- Atheneum: Seemingly huge library of decaying books and scrolls, utterly unorganized. Somehow, with proper guidance, a seeker may find the facts he wants.
- Chamber of Reflection: Meditation chamber where the Enlightened, and those chosen to potentially join them, purify and sanctify their minds and thinking.
- Tome of Mysteries: A chamber with an immense libram containing, if only knows how to ask and is prepared for the price, an answer to a problem.
- Rest of the Enlightened: Living chambers for the chosen of Baalshamoth, who administer the Fane in the name of the Sharer of Knowledge, and who are sometimes selected to carry special messages to the Purple Flame personally.
- Petitioners: Living quarters for those who would serve Baalshamoth and who have not yet had a place found for them.
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The Oneiromancium puts me in mind of the castle basement from Walking On Glass, getting addicted to the flow of hidden knowledge: your life outside this room is forgotten, it wasn’t as interesting as what you can experience here.
I’m not familiar with that story and hadn’t considered that interpretation, but I do like it.
This becomes even more tragic when you know that the ‘knowledge’ they are addicted to is biased to the desire of the seeker.
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