The Downward Spiral

The entrance to this dungeon is a huge spiraling funnel, easily 500 meters across and 300 meters deep. It looks like it has a circular path running along the edge of the funnel when there in fact are more than two spiraling
paths running down. This makes reaching the bottom of the funnel very difficult. The builders of the Spiral created an illusory effect using colors and angles to make it look as if there is only on path going down. However once someone starts descending, the trick of the Spiral does its work. It is namely impossible to descent the spiral. Halfway down, the deluded traveler looses all sense
of direction and doesn’t stop descending. While she thinks that she’s still going down the Spiral, she is following the same path over and over again. To notice this, you either need to succeed at a direction sense check (DC: 15) or you’ll probably notice it when the sun sets and you still haven’t reached the bottom. There is a way down and in order to find you have to change direction several times and follow cleverly concealed paths that will finally bring you to the entrance of the dungeon. The dungeon is a tomb, containing a few burial chambers and such (like the Egyptian pyramids). Before entering though the adventurers first have to fight a huge mantrap plant that has grown in the center of the funnel. It has long tentacles that can easily reach out and grab a person. It mainly feeds of the hapless desert animal that stumbles down the spiral and on a huge underground basin that used to be filled with water, but is now almost completely dry. In the dungeon the Heart of the Fearless or the Dreadnought can be found: A huge ruby the size of a fist.

Through research in old books the party can find out about its existence and whereabouts. It is actually a pretty infamous place of which a few drawings exist.


The main chamber of the dungeon is the mazelike combination lock that opens the way to the burial chamber of Lord Tuskin, a paladin from the Great War (they were called the Knights of the Goddess). The entire complex is powered with steam energy.


See the maze combination lock
See the mechanism.
The water is drained in a hole in the ground, where it fills the containers that lift the counterweight that locks the doors.
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