The Sundered Gate
RoomDCC 74 · p.27
Open source p.27Area 1-1 – The Sundered Gate
A pair of great doors, built of thick slabs of oak and banded in rusting iron, hang weakly from scorched hinges. Once the double doors were barred from the outside. Now the iron bar lies bent and warped on mossy ground.
Close inspection of the doors confirms initial impressions; the wood is blackened and singed, and the iron deformed from intense heat. Inspection of the bent, half-melted iron bar confirms suspicions that the doors were forced open from the inside.
A disc of hammered copper, roughly 1’ across, is set into the center of each door and secured with five silver nails. Beneath each disc is a crude brand, burned into the wooden beams. The brand depicts the runes of Madness, Disease, Age, Hunger, and Violence.
Removing either of the discs causes an icy wind to blow out from over the treetops, setting any remaining skull rattles (from Player Start) clacking. Foreboding clouds begin to gather overhead, blotting out the sun (or stars).
Characters dragging open the gates immediately spy a pair of blue apparitions, watching silently from the end of the nave (area 1-2): a tall, thin male in priest’s robes, and a lithe female in a long cloak and veil. Both make signs against evil, as if to ward off the PCs. The pair part and then vanish as the characters move into the nave.