Part 3: The Ooze-Flooded City

When Kwalish found it, the legendary lost city of Daoine Gloine was already an isolated mountain settlement. After he took over, the inventor set about closing off any and all routes to the site. As such, as the characters follow the notes found in Kwalish’s journal, they find that the narrow mountain passes begin to tighten around them the closer they come to the location where the city is said to be. Many of the passes, tunnels, and trails the characters follow are deliberately blocked off with rockslides and other unexplained disasters. The need to circumnavigate such areas accounts for much of the travel time to the city, unless the characters have arranged an alternative method of travel.

No matter how the characters are traveling, you might consider a few encounters within the mountain passes of the Barrier Peaks as a prelude to arriving at Daoine Gloine. See appendix A for more information.

Daoine Gloine

The city of Daoine Gloine has long been thought of as mere legend—just another strange tale from the already-strange Barrier Peaks. Occasionally, travelers would return from the mountains with wild claims of having been lost in the peaks 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, tended to by kenku in love with those creatures' shining beauty. These occasional tales drove more explorers—including Kwalish’s own expedition—to seek out the route to Daoine Gloine and learn the truth of who dwelled there.

As is often the case, the common tales had more sinister origins. In ages past, the kenku 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. Kenku priests brought regular sacrificial victims—both willing and unwilling—to stand before the medusa’s gaze. And when Gloine Nathair-Nathair died, the kenku raised her in undeath to prolong their cult, continuing to fill their city with glass statues.

After Kwalish fled his first laboratory, he used the initial research of his expedition to eventually make his way to Daoine Gloine. But instead of being welcomed and allowed to work in peace, Kwalish found the city’s evil high priest threatening to transform him into Daoine Gloine’s latest art installation. Desperate, Kwalish constructed another planar gateway while imprisoned in the temple, then opened a portal to the 222nd layer of the Abyss—Juiblex’s Slime Pits. A flood of ooze issued forth, driving the kenku from Daoine Gloine and effectively sealing the city away from the rest of the world.

The entire site—including the entrance to Kwalish’s second lab—now spreads beneath a deadly layer of clear gelatinous ooze—perfectly preserved, eerily staged, and utterly devoid of anything organic. The kenku that once occupied Daoine Gloine have all long been turned to glass or driven out. The city’s only resident is Kwalish, but the inventor has developed potent defenses to defend the entrance to his lab.

The following locations are identified on the map below.

O1. Overlook

The mountain passes the characters follow eventually open onto the top edge of a deep valley. Characters who arrive at this overlook can 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.

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.

O2. 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 kenku (the last inhabitants of the city before Kwalish and the ooze arrived), but explorers and mountain folk of many other races have also been trapped forever in glass.

Creature

When any intruder climbs the upper towers or moves along the bridges created where towers have fallen, the vibration of their movement alerts the Clockwork Kraken at the apparatus garage (area area O5). The construct’s tentacles are outfitted with local teleportation-field devices (see the earlier sidebar), allowing them to move throughout the city with a flying speed of 40 feet. When the tentacles reach intruders, they attack in an attempt to shove those creatures into the gelatinous ooze. See “Shoving a Creature” under “Melee Attacks” in chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook.

O3. Street Level

Several trails lead down into the city, granting a better view of the tableau beneath the ooze.

Unlike the figures seen standing staidly along the edges of the towers above, the hundreds of glass statues that fill Daoine Gloine have been arranged on the streets and in open courtyards as if staging scenes of city life—a market square, a royal personage holding court, and so forth. In addition to the statues, huge numbers of glassy baubles are spread throughout these scenes, serving as stand-ins for fruit in a market, as huge jewels worn at a ball, as a scepter and orb held by a statue noble, and so forth. Looking around, the legends appear almost true: here is a city inhabited entirely by folk of glass, and whose every possession is glass as well.

When the last of the kenku fled Daoine Gloine and the ooze had consumed all organic material within the abandoned city, Kwalish decided to redecorate. Traveling safely through the ooze in one of the apparatuses that bear his name, he arranged the statues throughout the city streets, creating a bizarre tableau of life within the city’s dead zone.

Unless they brought a fully sealed vehicle with them from the monastery, there are no obvious ways for the characters to enter the ooze safely. However, the tower of the apparatus garage (area area O5) holds an option for doing so. See that area for more information.

Creatures

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. See “Shoving a Creature” under “Melee Attacks” in chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook.

To guard the entrance to Kwalish’s lab, a number of the glass statues have been imbued with mechanical-magical power—armatures of the inventor’s own design that animate into ooze-folk. Once the characters enter the ooze to explore the streets of Daoine Gloine, the ooze-folk are on guard. For every 10 minutes the characters spend exploring, or if any significant violence disturbs the gelatinous ooze, 1d4 armatures activate within 30 feet of the characters. Individual blobs of ooze congeal around these statue armatures as they erupt out of their staged scenes and attack. If a serious fight breaks out with ooze-folk, that fight attracts more ooze-folk in turn.

A total of twenty-five ooze-folk can activate in this way before their numbers are depleted.

O4. Tomb of the Medusa

The tallest tower in the city, this former temple once housed the cult of the medusa.

The top level of the city’s tallest standing tower is ringed and covered by a dome of glass statues—all facing inward, and pressed so tightly together as to leave no space between them.

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.

Old shackles set along one wall show where victims were held. A space opposite that shows where other shackles have been removed from heavy bolts sunk into the stone. (The medusa’s shackles were once set here, but were removed and used in the clockwork kraken’s engine at area area O5.)

Monitor

The window-like device hangs against the wall where the medusa’s shackles were once set, and is framed by a complex mechanical filigree. This device is a two-way monitor that can be activated by a successful DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check. Doing so shows a silent view through the similar monitor in Kwalish’s lab (area area O7).

Creature

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 kenku. 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 their inane babble (the kenku’s mimicry), 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 (see area area O5) or any offer to help leave the temple. If the characters confirm the presence of the high priest in area area O5 (truthfully or otherwise), the medusa ignores them, scales the pit to escape using the entrance they created, and hunts the priest down.

Gloine Nathair-Nathair is a Medusa with the following changes:

• It is undead.
• It is immune to necrotic and poison damage.
• It is immune to exhaustion and the poisoned condition.
• Its Petrifying Gaze feature turns petrified creatures to glass instead of stone.

Temple Gate

On the ground floor of the temple tower, beneath the ooze where it fills the lower levels of the building, is a standing arch that is a match to the arch in the central abbey of the monastery (area area M3), but without the throne. If the crown and scepter from that area are worn and held by a creature within 5 feet of the arch (including a creature within an Apparatus of Kwalish or similar device), that creature can attempt a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check to open the archway. Treat this as if the character had cast the gate spell to open a gate to the 222nd layer of the Abyss.

Treasure

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).

A thorough search of the levels of the temple above the ooze also turns up the following:

• Spell Scroll 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.

O5. Apparatus Garage

This tower once served Kwalish as a temporary workshop, and still contains crucial remnants of his experiments.

A large, squat tower dominates the surrounding buildings. Heaped around its base is a jumbled tangle of old machinery, clockwork parts, piles of broken glass shards, and numerous oddly shaped glass statues. Some of these statues appear stretched, as if still viscous when fashioned, and almost as though they elongated themselves trying to escape their fate.

The space within the tower is likewise cluttered with broken relics from Kwalish’s earlier experiments, partial armatures, and the like. The remains of numerous alchemical furnaces can be seen, once used for shaping glass. Ancient notes and diagrams are also scattered about.

Creatures

A Clockwork Kraken has been installed in this area by Kwalish to protect the city. The main component of the construct’s clockwork engine is a coffin-like structure that bears a strong resemblance to Ctenmiir’s coffin. The engine housing can be opened with a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check or Dexterity check made with thieves' tools or tinker’s tools. If Gearbox is with the party, a character can attempt a DC 12 Dexterity check to help the modron open and override the engine.

Within the coffin is the jellified remains of a former kenku high priest of Daoine Gloine. Her undead body now powers the kraken, though she does not control it. If still active, the kraken’s tentacles work to defend its engine.

Kwalish developed a process of using living and undead creatures as a control module for powerful constructs, and placed the evil high priest here as punishment for her role in the countless sacrifices made to Gloine Nathair-Nathair. If the priest is attacked, treat her as a Vampire Spawn that cannot leave the coffin. But after endless years of undead incarceration, she sees the characters as potential servants, not foes.

Priestly Bargaining

The high priest attempts to engage the characters as soon as they enter the tower—but being a kenku, she communicates only through mimicry. Her pleas to be freed from the coffin might thus take the form of the last words of victims she brought before the medusa, or the rantings of Gloine Nathair-Nathair while the medusa lived and railed against her captivity.

In whatever way she can, the undead high priest begs the characters to open the coffin and free her. Her jellified undead body is slopped around an ornamental helmet and shackles. (These devices were once used to safely contain the medusa. See area area O4.) A thin silver wire connects the helmet and shackles to the coffin, and can be recognized as a form of astral silver cord with a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check.

If the high priest is disconnected (most easily by extracting the helmet and shackles from what’s left of her), the clockwork kraken and all ooze-folk in the city deactivate. The priest knows that after Kwalish flooded the city, he eventually escaped into an extradimensional space hidden beneath the ooze. She can also inform the characters about the garage’s Apparatus of Kwalish, and its ability to connect with the glass baubles. She suspects that one of the baubles leads to Kwalish’s lab, though she does not know which one. If questioned about the city’s countless sacrifices or the cult of the medusa, the evil priest falsely denies any knowledge of such things.

Development

A successful DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check made while searching the garage reveals the remains of a massive prototype Apparatus of Kwalish, able to transport up to ten Medium or smaller creatures.

The scattered notes and diagrams in this area can be used to repair and operate the Apparatus of Kwalish, but must first be deciphered with a successful DC 13 Intelligence (Arcana) check. They also describe Kwalish’s desire to construct a final laboratory hidden within an extradimensional space, and how he experimented with the city’s materials to construct such spaces within baubles of glass and crystal. These notes explain how the apparatus’s biomechanical umbilicus (an atropal’s augmented umbilical cord) can be used to connect with the baubles within the ooze. Doing so opens a magical portal within the apparatus that allows characters to enter the extradimensional space contained within a bauble.

If made operational, the apparatus can be used to safely dive into the gelatinous ooze in search of Kwalish’s hidden lab. However, if the clockwork kraken and the ooze-folk are still active, they attempt to grab and puncture the apparatus while the characters use it. Use the statistics for the Apparatus of Kwalish from chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide:

• Armor Class: 20
• Hit Points: 200
• Speed: 30 ft., swim 30 ft. (or 0 ft. for both if the legs and tail aren’t extended)
• Damage Immunities: poison, psychic

If the apparatus suffers fatal damage, materials and notes from the garage can be used to construct a new one. Completing such a project requires sufficient time and a successful DC 18 Intelligence (Arcana) check or Dexterity check using thieves' tools or tinker’s tools.

Treasure

A thorough search of the garage turns up a number of valuable components used in Kwalish’s experiments, worth 1,500 gp to any tinker, inventor, or artificer.

O6. Baubles

Hundreds of baubles have been set throughout the tableau of the city streets. If any ooze-folk (see area area O3) or the clockwork kraken (see area area O2) become active in response to the characters' intrusion, those defenders do not touch or intentionally damage any of the baubles, instead actively protecting them from harm.

Most of the baubles are mere glass, and any inspection of them notes that light shines through them cleanly. A select few baubles are made of crystal, as noted by any light shining through them creating a rainbow pattern. A successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check also spots this difference.

Dimensional Gateways

Touching a crystal bauble, or connecting with one by way of the Apparatus of Kwalish from area area O5, opens a magical connection to an extradimensional space within the bauble. Entering the correct bauble brings the characters into Kwalish’s laboratory. But entering one of the many decoy crystal baubles scattered throughout the city leads to a pocket dimension where the characters face a number of fanciful and challenging encounters. Use the “area Sample Bauble Encounters” table to randomly determine extradimensional encounters within decoy crystals, or as inspiration for making up your own.

You determine how many decoy crystal baubles the characters come across before finding the bauble that leads to Kwalish. If playing a shorter version of the adventure, you might have only one crystal bauble (see below) found among the city’s glass baubles, with that crystal bauble leading directly to Kwalish’s lab.

Kwalish’s Bauble Gate

A glass workshop can be found by characters exploring the city. Its kiln remains magically lit even beneath the ooze, filling the immediate area with an eerie light. A glass statue of an artisan near the kiln’s fire holds a crystal bauble as if shaping it. Accessing the extradimensional space within this bauble grants entrance to Kwalish’s lab at area area O7.

O7. Kwalish’s Lab

The crystal bauble found in the city’s glass workshop opens a portal to the extradimensional space in which Kwalish maintains his personal laboratory.

The extradimensional space beyond the portal is filled with working laboratory equipment, similar to the ruined gear seen in the monastery and the city, but even more advanced.

At the center of the lab, an elaborate system of glass piping and alchemical equipment flows and bubbles. Banks of instrument panels are set against the walls, including a framed glass device resembling a window. In another area, five clear canisters hold what appear to be still-beating hearts. Across the room, a mind flayer appears trapped inside a glass tank.

All of the active equipment in the lab appears to connect to a suit of plate armor standing at the far end of room.

Glass Piping

Clear glass tubes connect flasks, funnels, columns, and other alchemical gear filled with strange components undergoing constant transformation. Some are boiling, others are condensing or solidifying into crumbling powder, and all this work is fueled by burners emitting strange-colored flames and powered by ten steam mephits trapped in retort flasks. A successful DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check grants a character enough insight into the instruments to gain basic control over the lab, such that the experiments here can be safely examined. However, if the check is failed by 5 or more, the Steam Mephit are released.

Any character who succeeds on a DC 12 Wisdom (Medicine) check gets the disturbing impression that this glass piping is not manufactured, but rather resembles intestines. (The piping derives from the bodies of glass statues—former high priests partially revived by Kwalish so their glass intestines could be drawn out for his use. With a search of the lab, the rest of the priests' vivisected glass bodies can be found crumpled in terrible poses in a storage closet.)

Instrument Panels

These control panels are covered with buttons, dials, and gauges, as well as delicate machinery containing tiny clockwork devices reminiscent of ants performing intricate functions. A character who succeeds on a DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana) check determines that the workings of the panels derive from strange sources—some taken from the planar craft that became the monastery, but also from the bodies of modrons and inevitables (see Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes). Also set among the panels is a skull that has gems for its eyes and teeth (a magically modified demilich skull; see the “area Meeting Kwalish” section below).

Monitor

The window-like device hanging against the wall is a two-way monitor that can be activated with a successful DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check. Doing so shows a silent view through the similar monitor in the tomb of the medusa (area area O4). If Gloine Nathair-Nathair is still at that location, turning on this monitor brings her into view and allows her to use her Petrifying Gaze on any creature in the laboratory that she can see through the monitor.

Canisters

Five clear canisters line the walls, each one filled with fluid and the living, beating heart of some type of creature. With a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Nature) check, a character recognizes the hearts of three humanoids, a troll, and a dragon. Each canister is connected by a thin silver wire to multiple pieces of the laboratory’s equipment. The wire can be recognized as a form of astral silver cord with a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check.

Notes scattered about the area detail how the hearts in jars are fueling something called “Powered Armor,” and of Kwalish’s attempts to fuel the advanced technologies of the crashed planar craft with sources other than energy cells.

Creatures

Kwalish’s presence in the lab is left to your determination, and might depend on how much more adventuring you want the characters to do. See the “area Meeting Kwalish” section below for more information.

If the steam mephits are released, they might try to immediately escape (a 50 percent chance), but they otherwise attack everyone in the lab.

A Mind Flayer Arcanist (a variant creature in the Monster Manual) is trapped within a glass-walled stasis chamber, kept on hand by Kwalish to be consulted for its magical knowledge. A successful DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana or Investigation) check can activate the stasis controls and awaken the mind flayer.

The mind flayer has no effective attacks while within the stasis chamber, as no spells or other effects can pass through the cylinder in either direction. However, if the check to activate the controls fails by 5 or more, the cylinder accidentally opens to free the mind flayer. The creature attempts to bargain for its safety with a large number of well-armed characters, but it betrays and attempts to slay them at the first opportunity.

{@item Powered Armor|LLK}

The suit of armor at the end of the room is clearly the focus of the lab’s current experimentation, connected to various pieces of equipment by more silver wire recognizable as a form of astral cord. If the characters end the adventure on friendly terms with Kwalish, he indicates that although the powered armor is still being researched, it requires a test subject. He is thus willing to loan the armor to any character, provided they use it as their sole suit of armor and report back to him periodically so as to gauge its efficacy.

A character who accepts this offer automatically falls under the effect of a high-level geas spell, with instructions to report back to Kwalish at least once every three levels, and to return the powered armor to the inventor if they ever desire to wear some other armor instead.

If Kwalish is missing (see the “area Meeting Kwalish” section below), a character can simply don the armor themselves. However, this might lead to its own complications. See appendix B and appendix D for more information.

Treasure

If Kwalish is defeated, or if the gnome is missing when the characters come to the lab, a thorough search of the area turns up the following:

• A collection of exotic materials especially valuable as spell components, worth 3,750 gp
• A pouch of diamond dust worth 1,750 gp
• Numerous rare books worth a total of 500 gp
• A Manual of Iron Golems
• A Spell Scroll of Galder’s Speedy Courier (see appendix E)
• Several of Kwalish’s completed experiments whose mechanical effects reproduce the magic of certain magic items: a Folding Boat, Wings of Flying, and a Bag of Tricks
• Kwalish’s Powered Armor (see appendix B and appendix D)

The “Alien Technology” section in chapter 9 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide talks about how futuristic devices are often powered by energy cells. The force pikes found in the monastery, as well as the powered armor to be found in Kwalish’s lab in part 3 of the adventure, are two such devices. Alongside countless dead energy cells spread across this area, the characters also find 1d6 charged cells, each holding 20 charges and useful for the powered armor.

If the characters loot Kwalish’s lab, then rescue the gnome from stasis or a disembodied state (see below), their ability to blame the thefts on other creatures is left to your determination.

Sample Bauble Encounters

Meeting Kwalish

You have several options for having Kwalish appear to the characters, depending on how much time you wish to dedicate to the party’s exploration of the city of Daoine Gloine.

Quick Contact

The easiest approach is to have Kwalish in area area O7 when the characters arrive—an elderly gnome arcane inventor (use the Evoker stat block from Volo’s Guide to Monsters) working on his latest experiments. Though surprised by visitors, Kwalish listens to the characters and might even be willing to bargain for whatever help they need to complete their quest. In exchange, he requires only a bit of special material to fuel his experiments and continue his work—a piece of the characters' souls, extracted by his machinery.

With a successful DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check made to negotiate with Kwalish, the gnome asks only for a single bit of soul energy from any one character. If unsuccessful, he demands one bit of soul from each character in exchange for his aid or information. The magically enhanced demilich skull built into the lab’s instrumentation panels is used to channel a character’s soul energy once the bargain is struck. A character who has a portion of their soul removed in this way falls under a curse. While so cursed, whenever the character drops to 0 hit points, they are treated as if they had already failed one death saving throw. This curse can be removed only by a remove curse spell cast by an 18th-level spellcaster, by defeating Kwalish and reversing the process using his machines, or by completing a separate task for the inventor.

Just a Bit of Trouble

Kwalish is missing, trapped in stasis inside his own powered armor. The characters must first discover him there by making a close-up investigation of the armor, then find a way to access its controls. This can be accomplished with a successful DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check or Dexterity check made with thieves' tools or tinker’s tools. Alternatively, characters who experiment with tools found throughout the lab can access the armor’s controls given enough time. Even after accessing the controls, though, no one can approach the armor without setting off its automatic defenses. See the “Powered Armor Options” sidebar in appendix D.

Once he is freed, Kwalish is as grateful as he is able to express, and willing to listen to the characters' requests. This has the same outcome as above, but assume that negotiations are automatically successful and only one character needs to offer up a piece of their soul.

Kwalish Who?

Kwalish is missing, his physical body having been caught up within his laboratory equipment and rendered into various bodily components that now make their way through the glass piping in perpetuity. His mind, however, can still communicate through various means—clockwork ants forming signals and signs, messages drawn by mechanical hands, consultation with the trapped mind flayer, and so on. As best he can, Kwalish tries to instruct characters in the methods that might reconstitute his body (with those methods determined by you). Unfortunately, some of his body parts have been installed elsewhere in the city (within other baubles, forming part of the kraken’s engine, and so forth) and must be tracked down.

If the characters are successful, the regenerated Kwalish is grateful enough to help them with their quest even without payment. He then offers an additional boon to any interested character, granting the use of his laboratory to craft or summon any item or creature they desire (within any limits you set). However, the price for this service is one piece of the character’s soul, as above.

Roleplaying Kwalish

However he is met, Kwalish presents himself as a detached, single-minded researcher. In his mind, his work is more important than any other concerns, and he believes that the secrets of the technology found in the Barrier Peaks hold a vast potential to advance knowledge. If questioned, he proudly details his experiments (including with the powered armor), as well as the complete history of his time in the Barrier Peaks. If pressed, he talks of how he salvaged the minds of the members of his first expedition only after they were slain by the sphinx, and of how he buried Daoine Gloine in ooze only after discovering its inhabitants to be depraved cultists. In both cases, the inventor deemed his desperate actions as necessary measures to advance his research.

Sphinx’s Curse

If the characters engage Kwalish successfully, or as an added reward if they rescue him, the inventor can use his skill to remove the curse imposed by the enhanced sphinx (whose machinery he created). This restores to normal any ability scores decreased by the sphinx (see area area C2).

Laboratory Fight

If negotiations break down, or if the characters take unkindly to Kwalish’s cavalier attitude toward life, they might decide to confront and attack him. Kwalish first creates a distraction by releasing the mephits and the mind flayer in his lab as an action. He then turns on the monitor and ducks down to stay out of the medusa’s field of view. During the subsequent chaos, the gnome attempts to don the powered armor, then wreak havoc.

Concluding the Adventure

Depending on your specific adventure hook and how this adventure fits into your overall campaign, completing the adventure might have multiple ramifications.

Loose Ends

If Kwalish’s knowledge was needed to oppose threats in other lands, those threats might have been permanently quelled—or they might only have been temporarily driven back. Moreover, Kwalish’s aid could inadvertently create new threats, as might happen if opening the coffin-prison of the vampire, Ctenmiir, opens similar Kwalish-designed prisons across the world.

The power in the Barrier Peaks likely shifts dramatically if the Grand Master is defeated, and a new power struggle soon ensues for control of the monastery. If Ctenmiir escapes or is freed, he might return to the monastery to occupy it as his new lair. Mary Greymalkin joins him there, creating a sanctum of evil magic. If Gearbox has connected with the monastery, he might remain there as the pair’s unwitting servant—or the modron might seek to overthrow this new set of evil lords in the name of establishing the monastery as a place of pure knowledge and balance.

Kwalish’s Plans

Kwalish has long yearned to help the members of his former expedition trapped as brains in jars in the Monastery of the Distressed Body. Knowing that they still survive, he might provide instructions and materials for the characters to return to the monastery and provide the brains with new bodies. And in Daoine Gloine, the characters might entreat the inventor to discover a way to return the vitrified statues of the city to flesh. (If the characters haven’t destroyed the undead medusa yet, such means might involve a side quest where they bring Kwalish her severed head.)

Ultimately, Kwalish might become a patron of sorts to the party, especially if the powered armor is loaned out. If any character has bestowed a bit of their soul to the inventor, he promises to return it in exchange for the completion of certain tasks he sets before them (including helping restore his friends). The place of such a valuable and powerful contact in the campaign is yours to determine.

New Discoveries

The Cartophile possesses a good number of treasure maps in his extensive collections—some of which are even accurate. As an added reward for returning with maps and news of Kwalish’s original expedition, he might gift one such map to the characters. He might also look to hire the characters for future mapping expeditions, or to undertake specific dangerous missions in exchange for a share of the knowledge or treasure to be found there.

KWALISH LIVES?

Since his expedition vanished ages ago, it’s prudent to think about how it’s possible for Kwalish to be found alive and well in his lab. If the gnome is found trapped inside the powered armor in stasis or scattered throughout his laboratory, the answer is easy. You might also consider that Kwalish’s research into the planar craft’s magical technology, astral cords, and similar topics might have allowed him to prolong his life indefinitely by magical means. Alternatively, given the inventor’s ability to craft lifelike constructs, this version of Kwalish might not be the original gnome at all.