The Temple Between.pdf

The Temple Between
on a larger board; schemes far more devious than a
simple githyanki invasion are afoot. But this is a discovery,
and a challenge, for a future adventure. For
now, the PCs have more than enough on their plates
as it is.
The Mountainroot Temple
A subterranean structure built by the same order that
would later go on to construct the Monastery of the
Sundered Chain, the Mountainroot Temple stands
deep beneath the Stonehome Mountains. Built when
the dwarves were still celebrating their freedom
from the giants, it was not a dwarven structure, but a
temple built for anyone who wanted to pay tribute to
Moradin, of any race. It held great reliquaries of holy
icons, enormous cathedrals where hundreds could
worship at once, and even a doorway to the Astral
Plane whence angels and exarchs of Moradin would
appear to discourse with the god’s most favored
priests and champions. To facilitate a grand community
of Moradin worshipers, the Mountainroot Temple
had, in addition to its astral doors and its main
entryway into the mountains, four mystical doorways
constructed. Each linked to another temple of
Moradin elsewhere in the world, so the faithful could
come and go with ease.
And for decades, even centuries, the temple
thrived. Slowly, however, relations between
Moradin’s faithful grew strained. Priests assigned
to other, “lesser” temples grew envious of those at
Mountainroot. Many of the dwarf faithful grew
haughty, considering themselves Moradin’s “true”
children, and sought to oust all others, or at least put
them in lesser places, denying them access to the
temple’s wonders.
Was it Moradin’s wrath A curse brought upon
them by the giants they’d so long ago escaped Or
simply a natural catastrophe without greater meaning
None can say. Whatever the case, some centuries
ago, the mountain was struck by an earthquake.
Portions of the inner tunnels collapsed, damaging
several chambers of the Mountainroot Temple,
destroying others entirely. Panicked, the priests and
the faithful grabbed up their treasures and holy
icons—at least most of them—and fled using the surviving
magical portals.
Once they’d settled elsewhere, the bulk of
Moradin’s priests decided that this way was better.
By scattering from the temple, they would allow the
dwarves to build their own shrines, without feeling
constrained by the other races, and the jealousy
that marred the priesthood would fade. Although
they mourned the loss of the great cathedral, and
those few treasures they’d been unable to save, they
declared the quake to have been Moradin’s will and
left the temple abandoned. In time, most faithful,
even most priests save those most thoroughly learned
in their history, forgot it had ever been.
Most, but not all. After a few decades, a small
group of Moradin worshipers—mostly dwarves, but
with members of other races as well—returned to the
Mountainroot Temple. They cleaned it up as best they
could and vowed to maintain it until it should some
day become important once again. The most powerful
of their number took on the title of Caretaker and
lived within the temple, in a small structure built
inside the larger reliquary. The Caretaker carefully
attuned himself to the temple’s surviving magic,
allowing him to control the constructs and divine
defenses and traps that protected the structure from
outside invasion.
Zithiruun’s Plan
And so it remained, until the githyanki learned of
the temple and decided controlling it would better
enable them to control Overlook, and by extension,
Elsir Vale.
Zithiruun’s plan is to take Overlook by simultaneously
attacking from without and from within.
Already he has a force of mercenary soldiers hiding
in the wilds, ready to march on the city. Now, he’s
working to gain full control of the Mountainroot
Temple—and the Stone Anvil, its anchor in Overlook—
through which he can move a second force from the
Astral Sea into the city’s undefended heart.
To that end, Zithiruun has suborned a number
of Overlook’s priests and military officers. Most of
them, including several priests and Watch Captain
Aerun, were kidnapped and subject to a difficult
psychic ritual cast by incredibly powerful githyanki.
The result is that these poor people’s minds were
destroyed, and they have been possessed by several
githyanki, who are even capable of manifesting some
of their normal powers (albeit in weakened form).
Unfortunately, the possessing githyanki cannot
access anything more than the victim’s base personality;
they have no access to specific memories. So High
Priest Durkik of the Stone Anvil has not been possessed.
Rather, he is being held captive and tortured
for information, while a hired doppelganger takes his
place in public, holding the Stone Anvil in readiness
for Zithiruun’s forces.
All of which would have gone undetected, if not for
the alertness and curiosity of an old woman named
Haelyn . . .
December 2008 | DUNGEON 161
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