Daoine Gloine

The city of Daoine Gloine has long been thought of as mere legend — just another strange tale from the already-strange Calames Jungle. Occasionally, travelers would return from the mountains within the jungle with wild claims of having been lost in the jungle and visiting the city by accident. And though none of them could produce a full map showing the route they took, their stories all shared a common element — that Daoine Gloine was populated by creatures made of living glass. These occasional tales drove more explorers to seek out the route to Daoine Gloine and learn the truth of who dwelled there.
The following locations are identified on the map below.

Geography

The mountain passes eventually open onto the top edge of a deep valley. Allowing creatures to gaze down on the city below.

The legendary lost city of Daoine Gloine spreads out within a narrow mountain vale. Ancient and intricate stone towers rise up from the valley floor, though many of those have toppled against one another to form dangerous-looking walkways extending between the ruins. The rooftops and upper levels of the towers are strewn with vines and foliage. But a strange gleam extends across the lower reaches of the city, resembling an almost-transparent barrier some thirty feet above the ground, visible only where it catches the light.
Below that strange barrier, the buildings of the city are unnaturally clean, showing no signs of vegetation or other life, and highlighting the glimmering glass statuary that stands everywhere. Even at a distance, many of the statues appear to be humanoids of different races.

Description

Tower Level

As the characters draw closer to the city, they get a better view of the stone towers rising above the ooze.

Many of the glass statues set along the exteriors of the towers are, in fact, humanoids. They stand in alcoves or recesses along the towers’ upper reaches — and are crafted in disturbingly lifelike fashion. Gargoyles and caryatid columns also abound, anchored to rooftops or extending outward to form massive arches supporting the stonework above.

Horrid Statues. The glass statues that fill Daoine Gloine are the city’s sacrificial victims, forced into intricate poses and petrified (or, rather, vitrified) by the cult of the medusa. Many of the statues above the ooze show chips and cracks from long years of weathering. But below the ooze, most of the well-protected statues are perfectly intact and appear uncannily lifelike. Many are lizardfolk, but explorers and mountain folk of many other races have also been trapped forever in glass.

Street Level

Unless they brought a fully sealed vehicle with them, there are no obvious ways for the characters to enter the ooze safely.

Tomb of the Medusa

The tallest tower in the city, this former temple once housed the cult of the medusa.
The statues that surround the top of the tower were sacrifices vitrified here to create a wall around the medusa. A successful DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals areas where the statues are in agitated defensive poses. (When the ooze began to flood the city, the high priests quickly forced these final sacrifices forward to seal the medusa away.) A successful DC 13 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check allows the statues to be carefully shifted apart to allow access inside. The statues can also be smashed through (AC 10, 15 hit points, immunity to poison and psychic damage).
Temple. If enough statues are moved or broken open, they reveal a pit beyond, where a sheer drop of 25 feet leads down into this former temple.
The space below the statues is a huge temple gone to ruin. A main hall lined with painted murals is abutted by many smaller side chambers once filled with fine furnishings and decorations. All of that has rotted away to nothing now, but a series of shackles bolted to the wall across from some sort of large glass device hints at the horrid rites that must once have taken place here.
The wall murals can be deciphered with a successful DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check. These tell the story of the cult of the medusa, starting with the capture of Gloine Nathair-Nathair, long years of sacrificial victims brought before her, and the vitrified statues now found throughout the city. Gloine Nathair-Nathair can be found in the chamber below, now undead and locked, however, the door is open from the character's side.
A thorough search of the levels of the temple above the ooze also turns up the following:

• Spell scrolls of animate dead, flock of familiars (see appendix E), and greater restoration.
• One of Kwalish’s completed experiments — a set of clockwork-enhanced footwear that act as boots of striding and springing
• A collection of tiny glass statues of creatures, including a pseudodragon, an imp, and several will-o’-wisps, as well as several glass statues of hearts and brains — all vitrified creatures and once-living organs. The collection is worth 2,000 gp, but is very fragile.

Society

Demographics

Goblins

A group of goblins uses the upper ruins as a lair, when any intruder climbs the upper towers or moves along the bridges created where towers have fallen, the vibration of their movement alerts the goblins. When the goblins reach intruders, they attack in an attempt to shove those creatures into the gelatinous ooze.

Gargantuan Ooze

The gelatinous ooze that protects the city is a single creature of incomprehensible size. It fills the valley to a depth of 30 feet, and cannot move beyond the valley or the city. Even though it has no ability to move, the ooze is aware of all activity around it, and has extensive experience with drawing prey into itself. Treat the ooze as a massive, immobile gelatinous cube with these changes:

• It is immune to all damage and conditions.
• Its reach is 10 feet.
• Each round, the ooze can make one attack against each creature within its reach: a pseudopod attack against any creature within 10 feet of its surface, or an Engulf attack against any creature in contact with its surface.
• Alternatively, it can replace any of its pseudopod attacks with attempts to shove a creature within 5 feet of its surface into contact with its surface.

Gloine Nathair-Nathair

Once worshipped as a living goddess for her unique trait of transforming victims into glass instead of stone, Gloine Nathair-Nathair was kept a prisoner in the temple ever since the creature was captured by the long-gone lizardfolk. The medusa still occupies the tower, but is now undead and in skeletal form, unfettered and thoroughly insane. It can be heard hissing about the priests, and ranting about how it can still sense the hated high priest’s presence in the city. If the characters descend the pit, it attacks at once.
The medusa fights until destroyed unless distracted by any information regarding the high priest or any offer to help leave the temple. If the characters confirm the presence of the high priest in area O5 (truthfully or otherwise), the medusa ignores them, scales the pit to escape using the entrance they created, and hunts the priest down.
If Gloine Nathair-Nathair is defeated, the medusa wears a gold necklace (1,200 gp), a pair of gold bracers (375 gp each), and ten gem-studded gold rings (50 gp each).

Hazard

Ooze Barrier

The gleaming barrier marks the upper edge of the ooze. Above the creature, the flora of the mountains grows in abundance. But from about the third-story level down to the streets, the city appears immaculately clean, with all organic matter consumed by the ooze. A number of the towers that have toppled from age are above the ooze, providing a means for characters to explore and take shelter safely above the city.
A successful DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check made as the characters get closer to the city provides further clues as to the ooze’s nature. The bones of animals that have recently wandered into the city hang suspended within the ooze, appearing to be floating in midair. Likewise, bits of crumbling walls and broken statuary that have fallen hang suspended above the streets.

Map

History

As is often the case, the common tales had more sinister origins. In ages past, the lizardfolk that inhabited the city captured a unique medusa — Gloine Nathair-Nathair, whose gaze could transform victims into glass instead of stone. A cult of the medusa arose to worship the creature, which was effectively incarcerated within a central temple. Lizardfolk priests brought regular sacrificial victims — both willing and unwilling — to stand before the medusa’s gaze. And when Gloine Nathair-Nathair died, the lizardfolk raised her in undeath to prolong their cult, continuing to fill their city with glass statues.
One of the adventuring party was later captured, the city's high priest threatening to transform then into Daoine Gloine's latest art installation. Desperate, the party opened a planar gateway while imprisoned in the temple, then opened a portal to one of the layer of the Abyss, an infinite slime put. A flood of ooze issued forth, driving the Lizardfolk from Daoine Gloine and effectively sealing the city away from the rest of the world.
The entire site now spreads beneath a deadly layer of clear gelatinous ooze, perfectly preserved, eerily staged, and utterly devoid of anything organic. The lizardfolk that once occupied Daoine Gloine have all long been turned to glass or driven out. The city’s only resident is the undead medusa.

Geography

Aliases
The city of glass
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Society

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Goblin
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History

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Others

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Town