Deep Helm

The Deep Helm is the name given to a strange looking stone formation where several stone pillars are forming a crude circular dome shape. (seen from above it would be a wheel with spokes and a hub) There are a 8 paths forming stairway-like stone spokes that meet in the middle. They are arranged in a downward spiral. The most southern is the one going down. The nothern is going to the highest point giving a magnificent view over the island and the ocean to the east surrounding it.
The southern path slopes downward, and ends in a large circular hall emerged in darkness. Huge white and black pillars support the structure. Gold and silver trims make the pilars a sight to behold. The large stone circular plateau can be climbed via black and white stairs, ending on a solid golden edge around the plateau. Standing on the golden edge of the plateau it shows eight revolving stones (also balck and white, but moving so fast they look gray) as a door or entrance to the Deep.

The doors

These 'doors' are made out of huge flat upright stones (12m high, 4m wide and 2m thick) slowly rotating around a circular carved stone floor in the center. The room with the doors reveals -under the correct lightsources- several images and hyroglyphs.

Centerpiece

The center piece is intricate carved with symbols. The stone slabs float only an inch above the floor and are at least a meter apart. They are rotating fast in a unilateral movement, Rising up and down like a sinus wave in a predictable way. The structure is making a eery humming sound and adding a considerable airflow. This makes moving and talking difficult.

entering

When someone has access to powerfull defensive magic and times correctly, he or she can tumble under the rising doors into the center... A safe area where one can open the dimensional gate and enter into the Durga Planes, a dimensional world percieved as a world inside the earth. When one enters the dimensional rift through the veil of reality one can actually plan which realm is going to be entered. (but it is not an easy thing to do and currently far beyond the knowledge of most.)
the inhabitants of the world have found a few of these locations and there is one known document that describes the locations. Or at least, shows the details in the images. The language is studied by the Monks of Time

Purpose / Function

An entrance to a powerfull location enabling travelling.

Design

Large spherical room (500m diameter) deep underground made of stone.
The stone is impervious and resistant to physical and magical violence. (There is no flow of time inside the stone)

Entries

Stairs going down, deep into the ground into a stone entrance. This is reachable from the surface. Then there is one dimensional gateway into and from beyond. The magicians are convinced that there should be a device of some sort to control the room. They have never been able to find one.

Sensory & Appearance

The doors produce a painfully loud humming sound and extreme airflow with windspeeds up to 300 m/s.

Denizens

There are none, due to the sound and windspeeds.

Contents & Furnishings

The stone walls have all kinds of hyroglyphs and imagery. It is however very difficult to stay inside the room. Magicians are able to survive for some time inside.

Valuables

There is nothing to take (except for knowledge written on the walls)

Hazards & Traps

The humming sound and the high winds make it hard to concentrate, focus and survive. When something gets destroyed by sound and subharmionics (resonance) the dustparticles add another level of danger to the already high winds.

Special Properties

The stone is timeless. there is no way to damage it.

Architecture

stairs leading deep down into a spherical room of immense size. Deep underground.

Defenses

The walls are made of a black and white stone that is extremely hard. No-one has ever been able to scratch it. Magic has no effect. (this is due to a total time dillation.) All energy is dissipated into the spherical design powering the portal or dimension gate.

History

The Magistrarium Occulati has been aware for a long time of the locations existence and only in recent time they found a way to enter one location. Adventures found the floating stones and learned that they could not easily pass the defenses.

Type

Architectural Element, Entrance / Entryway

Included Locations

• Durga Planes

Environmental Effects

the humming sound drives anything that is capable of percieving sound in any way crazy. The subharmonics are strong enough to destroy certain materials by resonance.