Overview
This tall, ruined tower thrusts skyward from the summit of the crag. Its uppermost floor is blackened with soot and has been cracked open like an egg, with a fissure extending down one side of the building. Wooden scaffolds have been recently erected along this flank and work is clearly apace to rebuild the structure. At the foot of the tower, two ruined arches open into the interior.
Two hundred years ago, the wizard Thalivar settled in Leilon and raised a high tower as a laboratory for his magical studies. Thalivar’s field of interest was the planes of existence. At the top of his tower he erected a planar beacon that shone into other worlds, drawing strange creatures like moths to a flame and paralyzing them for his studies. Over the years, the reclusive wizard filled the tower’s library with his research and built an impressive menagerie of monsters.
One summer, Thalivar stopped visiting the town for supplies. The locals who entered his tower to investigate didn’t return, and the House of Thalivar became a shunned site at the heart of Leilon, drawing adventures from afar to plumb its mysteries for treasure. When the cataclysmic Spellplague wracked Toril, the magic of the tower’s planar beacon was redirected outward into the town, freezing the inhabitants where they stood and bringing ruin to the settlement.
Forces from
Neverwinter tore down the planar beacon and are refurbishing the tower for use as a garrison building. These efforts are led by Gallio Elibro, a powerful wizard and teacher at the Order of Mercury magical academy.
Gallio has secret orders from his superiors to seize Thalivar’s research and rebuild the planar beacon in a stronger form. Unfortunately, his efforts are hampered by ghostly activities inside the tower, which have driven away his military work crew. Gallio is unaware that Thalivar’s spirit haunts the tower and possesses him each night to carry on its research!
Dealing with Gallio Elibro
Gallio Elibro (CG male
Rashemi high mage) is a short-tempered man from
Neverwinter. His relentless studies have pushed him to the brink of exhaustion and his sleep is troubled (since he doesn’t know that the
ghost of Thalivar possesses him each night when he sleeps). Gallio wears an
ink-stained
robe and his curly black hair is tousled. His fingertips are stained with purple ink.
Gallio is furious that his workers have abandoned their duties. He beseeches the group to rid the tower of any spectral presences so his people can return and finish the job. Gallio has not seen any spirits, but he doesn’t doubt the word of his underlings. He remains in his study (area H3) if adventurers explore the tower. Gallio can recount the history of the tower to anyone who enquires.
Gallio's Possession
Each night, Thalivar’s
ghost emerges from the Ethereal Plane to possess Gallio while he’s sleeping. Unlike normal ghostly possession, Gallio remains unaware that his body has been hijacked and placed under the effects of the
spider climb spell. He crawls around the tower in his night gown, peers worriedly at the pile of rubble at the top of the tower, and scribbles in Thalivar’s old journal (area H9). If confronted, he uses Horrifying Visage to scare away his enemies or tries to defeat them in combat. Thalivar does not hesitate to abandon Gallio’s body if he feels threatened.
Ghostly Events
Thalivar’s
ghost tries to scare away anyone who enters his tower. If adventurers explore the area, roll on the table below every time they enter a new room.
| d6 | Encounters for Levels 1-2 |
|---|
| 1 | A sudden gust of wind extinguishes any open flames. |
| 2 | An adventurer sees their own reflection age in a puddle or pane of glass. |
| 3 | Books hurl themselves from a shelf. |
| 4 | Any pets or animals with the group hiss, bark, or back away from an empty corner of the room. |
| 5 | Any rations that the group carries with them suddenly spoil and rot. |
| 6 | A voice is heard whispering from a dark corner, but nobody is there. |
Confronting Thalivar's Ghost
Adventurers may try to summon Thalivar’s ghost using magic, a séance, or any other ploy they can devise, however, his spirit is insane and believes it is living in a nightmare. It does not want to parley and retreats into the Ethereal Plane at the first sign of trouble. Once per day, when Thalivar’s ghost returns to the Ethereal Plane, it chants a magical phrase that summons a
star spawn mangler into the tower.
Tower Features
The House of Thalivar is an 80-foot-tall stone tower that has fallen into ruin.
Ceilings
Ceilings inside the tower are 20 feet high and vaulted. The fourth floor is open to the sky, and a large portion of the third-floor ceiling has caved in where the planar beacon once resided.
Light
By day, sunlight punches into the upper floors through breaches in the outer wall or through high windows. The first floor remains gloomy and dimly lit even by day.
Doors
Doors are made of wood and are unlocked and badly rotted. They all creak loudly when operated.
Dangerous Floors
Some sections of floor are perilously weak and rotten. If a creature weighing more than 200 pounds enters these areas, the floor collapses underneath them. The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or fall 20 feet to the floor below.
House of Thalivar Locations
H1. Tower Exterior
The tower rests on a rocky plateau. A grand patio once abutted the building to the west, but it fell long ago and only a few broken arches of masonry remain. The eastern side of the tower is undergoing repair; from here, creatures can climb a ladder to ascend to the scaffolds at area H7.
H2. Entry Hall
The hall is strewn with rubble. Puddles of muddy rainwater pool over the floor and starlings’ nest in the eaves of the arched ceiling. There is a large banquet table bearing eight soldiers’
backpacks.
The packs contain three
potions of healing, five
healer’s kits, and 123 gp. However, these items belong to the solders, and Gallio won’t be pleased if adventurers ransack them.
H3. Gallio's Study
The walls of this study are lined with bookshelves housing dozens of musty scrolls and journals taken from the library on the second floor. Gallio Elibro spends most of his waking hours in here, attempting to decipher Thalivar’s coded research notes (area H6).
H4. Kitchen
The tower’s kitchen remains unused and is covered in a layer of masonry dust and rubble. The chimney over the hearth ascends for half the height of the tower before opening onto the breached third floor.
H5. Servant's Quarters
Thalivar was tended by his loyal
faerie dragon, Soapwort, who died when his master accidentally released a menagerie of extraplanar monsters into the tower. Soapwort’s chamber has long since caved in, and his bed is buried underneath a pile of rubble. Creatures who spend at least 30 minutes clearing the wreckage discover bones crushed underneath. Those who succeed on a DC 12 Intelligence (Medicine) check while examining the bones identify that they are from a faerie dragon.
Adventurers who’ve read Thalivar’s journal (area H9) may be interested in raising Soapwort from the dead. If they have the mean to do so, the faerie dragon agrees to help lay Thalivar’s ghost to rest. The old mage gladly listens to Soapwort and is laid to rest when the
dragon tells him that this life is but a dream. Soapwort returns to the Feywild when his job is done.
Casting
speak with dead is fruitless, as the corpse no longer has a mouth through which to speak.
H6. Library
These ruined chambers contain high shelves stacked with Thalivar’s moldering research notes. Each chamber houses a large statue of a peasant girl with her forefinger pressed to her lips in a hushing gesture. Anyone who succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence (Religion) check recognize her as
Mystra, goddess of magic.
Thalivar’s notes are written in pictographic code. Using magic, nothing short of a
wish spell can decipher them. Without such magic, Gallio must decrypt them himself using laborious trial and error. The task is highly taxing but Gallio is committed to seeing it through. At short notice, adventurers who examine the notes are unlikely to understand them.
Close examination reveals that each statue has a vandalized magical symbol carved into its back. Anyone who succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check identify these as sigils of transmutation magic. If a symbol is mended or reworked, the statue comes to life as a
stone golem and attacks intruders. They only attack creatures they can hear, always targeting the creature making the most noise. The statues never leave the library.
H7. Scaffolds
The soldiers have shored up one side of the tower with scaffolds. Ladders link the rickety scaffold platforms and a winch at the top is used to hoist timber and masonry between floors.
H8. Collapsed Rooms
These rooms have collapsed entirely, choking this floor of the tower from floor to ceiling. The soldiers were in the process of clearing this rubble when they fled the tower, and their
pickaxes and
shovels still lie where they fell. Clearing the rubble would take one person a week of hard labor.
H9. Thalivar's Bedroom
This chamber is sealed behind rubble. A broken window is the only entrance, but an enchantment woven into the window frame prevents most creatures from entering. Any time a creature attempts to pass through the window it must make a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature forgets what it’s doing and moves off to do something else. If it tries to enter the window again within the next hour, it automatically fails its saving throw. When Gallio is possessed, he can crawl freely through the window without being affected.
The ruined bedchamber belonged to Thalivar and still contains his bed and writing desk. A journal lies open on the desk next to a recently uncapped
ink pot. Adventurers who examine the journal discover that it is at least a hundred years old and written in the same hand throughout - yet there is a hundred-year gap between the older entries and the newest ones, which resumed just a few days previously. The journal is written in purple ink.
This journal belonged to the wizard Thalivar and details the studies he conducted inside the tower using a device called the Planar Beacon. The light of this artifact drew creatures from across the planes and trapped them inside the tower for him to study. The entries stop here for over a hundred years.
Dates on the entries and the freshness of the ink reveal that the later entries have been made in the last few days. Thalivar describes how he visits a ruined version of his tower in his dreams each night. In this dead world, he is drawn to a pile of rubble in the ruined chamber where his beacon once lay. Each time he draws close to the rubble, a terrible dread holds him back. Thalivar wishes his
faerie dragon Soapwort were here to assure him that he’s dreaming, but the
dragon never turns up. Thalivar prays that these nightmares will end soon so he may resume his studies in peace.
H10. Broken Beacon
This chamber once housed the planar beacon, but it is now in ruins and open to the sky. Prisoner cells line the walls, with bars broken and bent open as though whatever creatures were trapped within somehow broke out.
Anyone who searches through the rubble unearth Thalivar’s shattered skeleton. If these remains are buried using the
ceremony spell, Thalivar’s haunt is put to rest.
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