Repostin’ for Richard Robertson, with the visual reference as well.

Originally shared by Sean Dunstan

Repostin’ for Richard Robertson, with the visual reference as well. 

The Unraveled Tower

From the outside, The Unraveled Tower looks like any guard tower you’ve ever seen; a three-story featureless stone tower, connected by a short five-foot wall to a small stone hut.

This is, however, only from the outside. The inside is a different story.

The first thing people notice when entering the Tower is that the inside is larger than the outside. The main doors of the tower lead not into a round entry room as one would expect, but a large foyer with hallways leading in various directions. Again, these hallways lead far past where the external walls of the Tower are, and lead to a myriad collection of rooms and hallways.

While definitely unusual, most seasoned adventurers wouldn’t bat an eye at a situation like this. At least, not until they’ve spent some time in the Tower. In short, it is detached from the normal conventions of what we refer to as “space”.

There are three very important things to realize about the Tower: it is not tied to one location, the layout of the Tower is constantly shifting, and the Tower itself is sentient. 

Well, perhaps “sentient” is too strong a word. The Tower is not self aware (as far as anyone knows), but it have demonstrated being aware of thing going on within it, and reacting accordingly. 

As stated, the inside of the Tower has no fixed layout. Doors and passageways lead to different rooms from one moment to the next; a person can charge through a door into the dining hall, and the person two seconds behind him could wind up in the kennels. In fact, the Tower can add rooms to itself as needed. If its owner needs access to a large amount of weapons, then the next door he opens will go to an armory that wasn’t there before and might never be there again.

That brings us back to the idea of the Tower’s awareness. It has demonstrated on multiple occasions the awareness of what’s happening inside it, as well as the ability to react accordingly to certain degrees (such as providing rooms and keeping invaders wandering in endless hallways). The way the Tower reacts depends on who its master is; skilled wizards can “attune” themselves and their allies to the Tower, at which point it will work towards those people’s wishes.

The Tower is also capable of teleporting itself to a new location. It leaves no indication of its passing in its old location (i.e., no large patch of dirt surrounded by grass where something obviously used to be), and when it arrives in its new location it will look like it’s been there for ages. Note that this doesn’t mean that people won’t suddenly notice the absence/appearance of the Tower; there’s no “it’s always been there, but had it always been there yesterday?” effect going on.

One last thing needs to be mentioned about the Tower: the windows. The outside of the tower only has about a half-dozen windows, but obviously the inside has many, many more. These windows can open from the Tower to anywhere in the world; a view over the sea, a vast desert, the inside of a mine or straight down into a volcano. From the outside, the window will appear on a convinent flat surface, such as on a large rock or the side of a ship. If there’s no surface to attach to, then the window simply appears as a “hole” hanging in mid-air.

The current master of the Unraveled Tower is a vampire necromancer named Carlot. He is not a powerful sorcerer, and seems to be unaware of the Tower’s true potential. He has found the extra rooms useful for storing the horde of skeletons and zombies he’s slowly assembling, however.

Dungeon Moves for The Unraveled Tower

• Add or remove a room from itself

• Trap someone in an endless loop of rooms and corridors

• Open a window to an exotic location

• Travel across the world in the blink of an eye

Attuning yourself to the Tower is a Ritual with the following conditions: First you must eliminate the current master, it takes days, and you and your allies will risk danger from the formless entities that live outside of space.

#dungeonworld   #settingdesign  

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