GLAUGUST - The Hall of the Whispering Pretenders

11 Aug, 2025

Intro

It's glaugust, baby! I'm trying to do at least one prompt from all six tables laid out in the original Glaugust post, as well as work on my Antarctic Hexcrawl Jam, so I figured I'd write something for both! This is a dungeon for my Violet Flower Project, and hits two prompts from the Glaugust tables, so... mission accomplished? Here you go!

The Rundown

Malachite Who Mourns What He Made was accosted by the whispering of three voices, thereafter called "The Persuaders". This dungeon was once a temple which led believers through a series of ritual challenges designed to mirror Malachite's contemplations. The temple was constructed on the side of a great cliff, with wide stone doors so large they were seen for miles around. The temple was abandoned, so the story goes, because the whispers of The Persuaders came to haunt the temple, real echoes of their abyssal influence beyond the great black mists at the edges of the world beyond the Violet Flower.

A cloister of Stone-men, held together by borrowed flesh and pieces of gravel, still act out their auxiliary functions as temple guards and cleaners, informing visitor's of the temple's "temporary closure" and assuring them that services will proceed shortly. They are unwilling to face the fact that their beloved institution has crumbled; all deny what sits before their eyes. This cognitive dissonance drives them to maintain the temple exactly as it always was, so that, in some age never to come, it may be reopened and used again.

The Silver Wyrmlings fashion themselves acolytes of the great Stone-man architect Rock Macaw, organizing themselves in the temple as masons and contractors carrying out his grand design. Rock Macaw never had designs on the temple (in fact, he lived far away from the area) but the Wyrmling's blueprints nonetheless possess a precision and elegance found only in the master's work. They are precise, beautiful, and lasting, but destructive and anachronistic to the temple's original purpose.

Sidebar: What Are Wyrmlings?

Wyrmlings are small creatures with the body of giant muriqui (wooly spider monkeys) and the heads of velociraptor. The color of the feathers on a Wyrmling's head denotes their family group; Wyrmling society is based on the interaction between seven families of Wyrmling, each with their distinctive feather color. for the purposes of making this dungeon fit your own setting, they may be replaced with goblins, kobolds, or any other manner of humanoid creature. Or, just use a cult of humans obsessed with architecture.

Dungeon Key

Roll an encounter check every turn at a 1-in-6 chance, or 2-in-6 chance whenever a trap is activated or loud noise is made. Roll also at hallway intersections. All hallways take 1 turn to traverse unless a significant choice (like an intersection) is present, otherwise they take 2 turns.

1. Clean air pours in from the colossal stone doors to the south, stuck open. 7 Stone-men here arm themselves with wooden claws and shields in preparation for "pest control". They begin in 1d6+4 turns, at. which point they leave the room and enter the encounter table, replacing results 3 and 4. If a 4 is rolled, Baalam is being chased by the Stone-men, who wish to kill him for trespassing in the temple without their permission.
2. Once, the shattered stone statues and crumbling fountain may have been a sight to see amongst the vegetation here. Once. Crying or shedding any tear in this room causes the fountain to activate, making the floor in this room and the entire hallway to the north slippery and wet.
3. Opposite the entrance to this room is a carved stone head of the Hydra, gemstone eyes glittering red (1000gp each) and mouth agape in a dripping snarl. Once a turn, a single water drop falls. from the hydra's mouth and sizzles on the floor. Stepping into the room activates the hydra, who sprays a jet of superheated water at the entrance of the room. Everyone at the entrance and in the hall must save or take 2d6 damage (roll separately for each target affected).
4. A stone copy of the Violet Flower is unfurled here, a pitiful attempt at the beauty of all creation. In the center, a black mist hangs in the air like an oil spill. This is the Spectre (as Wight, damaged only by obsidian), the creature that caused the temple to be abandoned ages ago. The Spectre has coagulated around a piece of Malachite Who Mourns What He Wrought's face, one of 11 pieces scattered around this petal. It is a treasured relic among all who live on the Violet Flower.
5. Sounds of construction, drilling, and the quick bickering fights of old masters arguing over the implementation of some design or other. There are 11 Wyrmlings here, preparing to expand the temple complex westward.
6. The floor is a mosaic depicting Malachite Who Mourns What He Made introspecting upon the Violet Flower. His mouth sticks out from the mosaic; a large black plate made from charcoal. Standing on the plate with both feet ages a character by one stage of their life, or 20 years.
7. A mural of the Violet Flower is painted on the ceiling. The stigma is painted to resemble a target. When struck by a stone or other projectile, causes a small incorporeal rockslide. Anyone directly beneath the center of the flower is safe. Anyone else in the room must save or lose their mental composure to the tug of a not-death so close to them for 3 turns. The earth beneath this room believes in the not-death, collapsing after the trap triggers to reveal a 30' hole into room 15.

\8. Against the eastern wall is the out line of a human rendered in red paint. Leaning against the outline causes spikes to emerge from the wall into the person leaning, about as intense as the pain of getting a tattoo. If someone presses their whole body into the outline, their mind clears as if under the effect of some stimulant, and they learn a spell, Malachite's Mental Shatter

Malachite's Mental Shatter: Make eye contact with another living creature; the creature must save or be completely dumbstruck by a headache for 1d6 + Caster HD turns. If the Caster's HD is greater than the target's by 4, the target is instead killed instantly, head unfolding into a spray and pieces of skull presenting like a flower's first bloom.

9. Small waist-high shelves covered in books ruined by water damage from the fountain in room 2. Water puddles in the center of the room.
10. A tall stone cabinet whose wooden doors are locked. Inside is an obsidian dagger and a set of bright green cloth armor embroidered with patterns of maize and macaws.
11. The Wyrmlings have constructed a trapdoor over the demolished remains of a spiral staircase. A ladder, made from shoddy wood, serves to carry people down 30' to the next floor.

12. The communal dung pile of the Silver Wyrmlings is here, amidst a beautiful painted room that resembles the interior of a flower's stem.
13. A wyrmling has gone mad with authorial power in this room, operating a colossal rock hammer from an elaborate netted seat in the ceiling of this room with a complicated set of ropes and pulleys. The contents of the room are broken beyond recognition.
14. A Wyrmling wizard named Wam-Bam teases geometric strands of obsidian out of a large crack in the floor with a song played on a drum and a dance performed with hands and feet. It can be persuaded to give the party 6 arrowheads from its obsidian. A large rock hammer lies discarded and forgotten nearby.
15. Lit clay braziers full of oil hang suspended from rope. If the trap from room 7 was sprung, a large hole in the ceiling miraculously misses the supporting ropes and braziers. 4 Shades (as weak Ghosts, no non-magic immunity) linger in this room, scared by the light but unable to leave or they are destroyed. They are hostile, but only out of fear.
16. Large snuffing caps for the braziers in room 15. A large clay jar of oil could refill the braziers (or any lanterns in the party) for 600 turns worth of light. The vat is impossibly heavy and would require 6 men to carry.
17. A protective clay visor covers the eyes of a wall-length mural of a man with a red face. Removing or breaking the visor reveals the eyes of the red-faced man, which are painted with promises of power serving the Hydra (Save or lose the character to forces beyond their ken).
18. The sound of flowing water dominates this room, which contains two lecterns with two books, one black and one red. The red book's pages are covered in happy drawings, boys and girls and those between in elysian fields. Sex, crudely rendered but lovingly recalled, is depicted alongside marriages or kissing lovers. What little writing there is reads simply, "the love of my life", "the morning sun", "the full moon", "the many petals of the Violet Flower". The black book is similar, although recorded on the pages are horrific drawings. Murder, sacrifice, theft, starvation rendered in terrible clarity. The words in this book are short, the letters scratched with shaking hand, "death," "hunger," and "pain." There is nothing else notable about the books or this room.
19. A small closet full of cleaning supplies, leaflets of empty parchment, and a large wooden box full of painting supplies. Hidden beneath the chest is a crawlspace which leads to room 22.
20. Down a smoke-filled hallway lies a single bowl with burning incense. Breathing deeply of the smoke ages someone into the next stage of their life, or 20 years. Anyone killed in this way evaporates, curling up and into the smoke throughout the room.
21. A bubbling river flows through this large room, over smooth green stones. On the other side of the shallow river is a mural of Malachite Who Mourns What He Made, his face shattered into pieces and tears running down between the broken cracks. Touching the tears grants clarity of mind and cures any longstanding wounds a person might have in addition to restoring their HP. The river in the room runs into a grate painted abyssal black.
22. Downriver lies a small cave, untouched by the hands of men for decades. A broken clay pot, covered with depictions of Malachite Who Mourns What He Made and other folk heroes lies shattered beside an altar weighed down by jade carved into figurines of soldiers. A prison for The Spectre, broken. Repairing the pot or otherwise offering a new blessed vessel returns the Spectre from Room 4 into this room and this prison.