Temple of Depraved Devotion
The darkened thorns crawl through the thick underbrush, leading towards something. After several days of passage, you begin to sense some change in the air around you without much trouble. The humid winds slowly bring you a strong smell of decaying bodies and a harsh smell of something burning. Drawing closer, you notice something rise from the wet jungle floor. A massive building of dark stone, shaped like a tiny, overgrown mountain covered in vines and jagged black spires.
The temple of deprived devotion is placed between the Derisaí Range and Lake Mengerikan in the southern edge of the Volopin Woods. It was a base of operations for the cult known as Union of Love.
Several large tents are put up in front of the entrance, the smell of wet fur, decaying flesh, and burning wood wafting through the area. A distance away from the tents, and the entrance, are several large holes carved through the earth, wooden supports keeping the passages intact. The tents surround two lit pyres, the ground around them littered with intestines and ripped apart bodies, covered in gnash marks. The sounds from the creatures resting near the pyres make them easily recognizable, as a group of several hyena-folk laugh and feast on the day's hunt.
A group of Gnolls wearing robes of black and yellow are spending the end of the day eating near the pyres. Two followers of the deformed also wait in separate tents to the south while a modified grick and bulette guard the entrance to the temple. If the players engage or alert the cultists, they fight back until death, starting with attempting to hit one of the two bells that are placed near the entrance - alerting the rest of the temple to the invader's presence.
When the characters get inside the temple, read the following text aloud:
As your feet begin to move inside the dark temple, you start to make out the contour of some structure towards the back of the room. Moving further inside, you start to hear voices echoing around you, whispers chanting strange words in an unknowable tongue. Black smoke and fog seem to permeate the inside of the facility, limiting your vision. You step into a large chamber with a high ceiling, several pillars keeping the room steady, and two corridors leading splitting the path to left and right.
Several cultists were spending time in the mess hall of the temple, if the bells were rung outside, and the alert wasn't lifted, the cultists are ready to attack any intruder that enters. Read the following text aloud when the characters enter the mess hall:
The door creaks open, revealing 10 wooden tables running along with the entire chamber. A candelabra on each table keeps the room very dimly lit. Several cultists stand or sit around the room.
If the characters enter the arena, read the following text aloud:
Blood-stained sands and bleached, rotten bones fill the floor of the desolate arena. The corpses of large beasts lie scattered on the ground, their blood decorating the walls. Stepped rows of stone benches line the fighting pit—a gallery for bloodthirsty spectators.
If the characters come into the line of sight of the cell in the arena, either by jumping into the pit or walking through the front door, read the following text aloud:
Towards the back of the blood-stained arena is an iron-barred cell. Hanging from manacles attached to the wall is a woman, her clothes and white hair are soaked in blood and torn. Black veins pulse throughout her body, and her struggling face suggests she is in pain.
North Side
If the characters enter the preaching hall on the north side of the building, read the following text aloud:Lined with benches and lecterns, the chamber reminds you of a church hall. A heightened platform is at the end of the hall, with a corridor leading towards the east.
If the characters enter the undead summoning hall, read the following text aloud:
A large ritual circle is engraved on the floor in the center of this chamber, surrounded by four skulls atop engraved pedestals.
If the characters enter the research hall, read the following text aloud:
The white and golden butterflies known as rukh flutter around the room, and you can see the demolished body of a cultist laying on the floor in the center of the room, their body looks torn apart from the inside. The floor itself is covered in writing, scribbled notes written with frenzy. A large figure stands towards the back of the room. A large jet black figure, their skin pulled taut against their muscles, tattered wings sprouting from their back.
South Side
If the characters enter a modification hall, read the following text aloud:Several runic circles dot the room, each surrounded by four pillars with a monocolored orb. Energy hums from the orbs towards the center of the circles. In the corners of the room are an additional four pillars now with multicolored orbs. The multicolored orbs radiate energy throughout the chamber.
If the characters move towards the beast pens, read the following text aloud:
Multiple large cells are placed around this part of the building, light coming in from an opening in the ceiling above each cell. Different types of beasts are held captive in the cells, including gricks, bulettes, and several other beasts from the area.
If the characters enter the desecrated hall of gods, read the following text aloud:
The door creaks open to reveal a dark, circular chamber, decorated with stone pedestals spread around the room. Small stones and pebbles are scattered on the floor, likely from the destroyed objects on top of the pedestals. Atop each pedestal is a shattered stone symbol of a god, the most prominent of which is Loric's towards the back of the room. A large hole has pierced through the plate, and cracks have spread across the wall behind it.
Type
Temple / Religious complex
Parent Location
Related Report (Primary Locations)
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