The Hexahedron of the Monks of Flame!

WE NEED ATTENTION GOD DAMMIT!!!

Has Victory truly defeated us? Perhaps poor planning, house moves, health problems and general malaise have muted our powers...

WE ARE ONLY £500 away from an upgrade which will increase the print quality of 'Demon-Bone Sarcophagus' to that of Deep Carbon Observatory. 

That includes multiple ribbons, 150gms paper and a spot highlight cover!

And £5,000 after that, Bukako Shall Feast Again! 

Yes more levelels spells for the ever-growing Feast of Bukako PDF which shall hopefully one day swell to become a true, free open tome of leveless spells for all.

But to be honest, no-one really seemed THAT interested in Bukako to begin with.... (not that I care, I intend to do it anyway).

So, with 20 (19 by the time you read this probably) days to go, Scrap and I fall back on an OLD CLASSIC.

Yes, the blog ping-pong content creation contest. 

One of us does a post and poses a challenge for the other, to be answered by them on their blog. At the end of that post they in turn propose their own challenge and so on.

(If you would like to see the first ping-pong contest we did for DCO then you can start HERE.)

BUT!

In this case we will not be proposing any random image-based challenge, but instead the creation of an ENTIRE (& relatively small) DUNGEON!

I present.. 

THIS

(Ok so this dungeon is not 'canon' and it doesn't involve content from Broken Fire REgime or Demon-Bone Sarcophagus, bt we will try to throw in some general fire-themeing, plus there may or may not be nods or links in deniable ways, so hopefully it will prove useful or at least interesting in some way or another.)





WHAT IS THIS PLACE ANYWAY??

A mountainside like a tumbled river of stone, layers of forgotten epochs tipped like laden plates, 
lost and compresed, eroded and chiselled by wind. An escarpment, the image from a film still, the banded red rock broken like an eternally collapsing wave, labouring redly beneath a red sun.
And in this maze of fractal shadows and broken stone; the strange sides and regular angles of a perfect Cube poking from the shattered scree, a temple carved directly from the stone of the mountain. 

After many days of travel on the Phyrrous Plain, sweating horses, parched riverbeds, sleepless nights, hissing snakes and constant fear, this is the first unnatural shape or texture you have seen. It feels unreal, like childs toy abandoned in the wild....

It is no illusion! For here at last is the end of your quest, the mysterious and long-forgotten...

HEXAHEDRON OF THE MONKS OF FLAME......

a dark stair beckons in the shadowed stone. the stars glimmer overhead and from beneath, a wisp of scent. a long corridor, two passages. You take the leftward path...

ROOM 12

APPROACHING THE DOOR

The flames from any lamps or torches carried reach towards the door even before it is opened. They seem to form small hands and fingers which trace against its surface but leave no mark.

WITHIN

The room has two aspects, one if it is lit by flame, one if it is not.

THE ROOM LIT BY FLAME

A bright room, painted with mandalas, wheels and chariots of fire. Across its ceiling the image of a god of frozen flame made from the conflagrations of destroyed cities.

An the southern wall, an arch of iron shows the way to the surface.

In the western wall, an arch of ivory marks the exit.

If any member of the party is carrying a naked flame, it speaks! Crying out as a child in pain and asks...

"WHY DO I LIVE? WHY MUST I DIE?"

Of course the answers to these two questions, as well as the correct propitiation and sacrifices, will only be known to those who have already reached the deepest rooms of the Hexahedron.

Once the correct answers, propitiations and sacrifices are made, the flames fall silent.

If they are not answered or made, any flame held by the characters grows and swells like a vile cancer forming a hideous spawn of toxic fire and attacking them!

This flame spawn can be killed by extinguishing the initial fuel and flame, to which it remains connected as if by a shining cord of fire.

Of course if this is done they must face the room in its second state;

THE ROOM LIT BY NO FLAME

If there is no fire within the room the mandalas fade revealing the natural strata of the rock behind, which glows as if beneath pal moonlight, before expanding into a seemingly infinite distance!
The far door seems many leagues away, across a desert of ash!

Tis a cold desert, beset with (2d6) wolves - cold and brutal, as is the life of man without fire to bless it.
Not only this but your weapons shall be made bone and your meat made raw, ye leather shall be un-cured and all that is metal or born of flame shall be remade into stone, bone and wood and ye shall suffer in darkness!

The desert in an illusion which you can roll to disbelieve or dispel in the usual way but if you can't do that then you must travel across it for 1d3 days before you reach the door on the other side.

Should you reach the exit (an arch or iron or ivory standing in the desert of Ash), the transmutation of your treasure and equipment persists! 

Keep your eyes peeled!

Look for the next room in the dungeon over at Monster Manual Sewn from Pants!