The Mirrored Halls of Medusa
A famed sculptor known for his detailed stone statues has hired a group of brigands to kidnap families form villages and bring them back to him. Underneath his home is a secret lair where a medusa turns the families to stone in exchange for half the profits. The sculptor then sells the statues at high prices to nobles all over the country.
After a series of disappearances from an area the players are traveling through, the locals feel a curse has overtaken their land and will reward anyone who can find a solution. Offering something substantial or even have something the players need to advance in their regular campaign.
If the players investigate, they find homes broken into and signs of a fight, like blood and broken dishes. If locals are questioned, they report seeing shadows at night and hearing noises of battle inside the victims’ homes. They believe it’s banshees or ghosts.
Add a few red herrings to throw the players off, creepy old people, a band of orcs in the area, even a known evil cult worshiping a benign but suspicious deity. Â This is to add some dimension to the adventure forcing investigation at first over fighting.
1 - at some point the players will have to encounter the brigands breaking into a home, either through stakeouts, information, magic, or sheer luck. When they do, the brigands should match the players’ skill from local thugs to hired mercenaries of wizards and seasoned warriors.
The brigands will not all fight to the death and in exchange for their life or freedom reveal, the sculptor is the one pulling the strings, giving players directions to his location, city and home.
2 - the city should be of larger side and the sculptor will live in the merchant section. His home will be mostly a stone workshop built on the outskirts of the city where it is easier to hide what is going on.
His home, a few rooms that should be in there feel free to add more if you wish:
A - a chamber of highly detailed statues set on pedestals.
It is a show room for nobles to come and purchase the sculptor’s work.
Note: upon inspection of the statues, they would appear masterwork quality, but are in fact former people of flesh and blood.
B - a workshop of benches, sculpting tools, blocks of stone, and half chiseled statues.
Note: inspection of these stature reveals lesser quality work as the sculptor is in fact not very skilled, but forced to appear as if he is running a legitimate business.
C - a bedroom, containing a lavish bed, table, dresser of clothing etc
Note: within the dresser will be some jewelry and gems of various quality and worth. Hidden under the floorboards is the sculptor’s stash of gold, since he is not a class level, he will have no magic items.
D - the basement contains old barrels and creates. They are used to cover a secret iron door leading to the medusa lair.
Note: the door will be locked and can be picked, broken or opened with a key found off the sculptor.
E - the sculptor can be found in any room you wish.
He will deny any accusations, and will call for the guards if players harass him. However, if forced with violence, he will reveal everything since he is a coward.
Note: the sculptor will have a key to the secret basement door and a few gold coins in a purse. Players can also sneak in and search for clues coming across the secret door on their own.
3 - past the cellar door is a short stone stairway leading to a stone chamber with a mirror covering the entire back wall. Two medusa statues stand in alcoves along the wall, their hair snakes hold lit purple candles clenched between their fangs.
A - the mirror hides the passage to part 4 and must be broken or removed to pass.
4 - a stone chamber. In each corner of the room stands a marble pillar with a medusa head, its eyes burn with purple flame. In the center of the room is a pillar holding a small mirror.
A -when the players enter the room, purple beams shoot from the medusa eyes.
Players must roll to avoid the beams or be turned to stone.
Note: if that is too hard, consider stunning the players for X D6 rounds, dealing Xd6 fire damage. While the players are stunned, they appear as if they are stone and cannot react to anything.
This should scare the players for a bit till the effect wears off.
B - the mirror can be taken off the pillar. The players must use the mirror to reflect the rays back onto the medusa heads, which will then extinguish the flames. When each flame is extinguished, a wall will slide open to part 5.
Note: after several moments, the wall will slide back into place, but can be reopened with a switch on the other side.
5 - a hall of stone with cut holes in the walls. Slithering and hissing can be heard from the other side. On the back wall is a stone door covered in live snakes.
A - as players cross the corridors, snakes will lunge from the holes to strike at players.
You can either roll to attack or have players roll to avoid the snakes. If hit, players will take damage plus be poisoned, which adds extra damage, stun, stat loss, etc.
The holes in the wall lead to snake dens where 100s if not 1000s of snake sleep and eat.
B - the center of the hall is a pit trap causing players to fall X meters into a pit of more snakes.
Treat the snakes as a swarm with one set of hit points and multiple attacks. For added stress, there can be extra snakes dens down there which continuously add to their numbers, forcing  players to escape rather than fight their way out.
C - the door is locked, which can be picked or brute forced to open.
Snakes continue to lunge from the dens, forcing players to fight off snakes while opening the door.
Note: all the snakes have been purchased and breed by the medusa with her share of the money. Players could break the walls or kill the entire horde if they choose or have the patience.
6 - a stone chamber with dozens of large mirrors hanging over the walls.
A - the mirrors cover alcoves. The player must remove or break the mirrors to get into the alcoves.
Some alcoves contain iron lock boxes that rest on touch plates. When the lock boxes are moved, they trigger a poison gas cloud, doing damage in a radius as per the damage you choose for the snakes in part 5.
Note: inside the lock boxes are the medusa treasures from her share of the sculptor, usually serpent like statues and exotic snake skins from far away lands.
Other alcoves will be trapped with poison darts that shoot at the player when the mirror is removed.
One alcove has a lever, which when triggered causes the entire room to open into a pit trap, sending the players X meters onto poisonous shards of glass.
One alcove has a lever which when triggered slides open a wall to part 7.
7 - a circular stone room with a dozen 2 meter mirrors hanging on the wall. In the center, flanked by two candelabras, is a medusa statue with its hair snakes holding lit purple candles clenched between their fangs.
A - the statue is the real medusa using an illusion to appear as a statue.
She can attack and use gaze spells while still appearing to be a still statue in the center of the room.
If any player attacks the statue, it will injure the medusa, but to the players will only appear to be chipping away stone.
If any player has true seeing, they see the medusa instead and not the illusion.
B - the mirrors all reveal the medusa in their reflection, but as if she was standing in front of the mirror and not in the center of the room.
The mirrored image will reflect all actions the medusa takes, but as if she was standing in the front of the mirror and not in the center of the room.
Note: this will lure the players into attacking the mirror, hoping to find the real medusa behind one of them instead of focusing on the statue.
The mirrors are acting as mirror images of the spell and are not actually magic items.
C - if players break or remove the mirror, they trigger a gas cloud hidden in an alcove on the other side. It fills the chamber for X rounds doing 1 damage a round, doubling for each trap triggered: 2, 4, 8, 16, maxing at 32 or 64 depending how mean you are.
Note: the medusa built this dungeon with her money and has not yet finished her work. To represent this, there can be other side passageways, empty rooms and dugout tunnels, revealing her plans to build off this place into something more massive.
When the medusa is slain, the players, if they have a good conscience, still have to recover all the statues across the lands.
Maybe some nobles were in on it and now are after the players to keep the truth hidden.
Maybe some nobles don’t want to believe the players, forcing players to break into their estates, casting stone to flesh on the statues to reveal the truth.
Maybe the players find out a powerful stone elemental or dwarf cult is behind this, hoping to turn everything to stone.
Either way, have fun and hope to see you again.
izzy806
jbbartram-illu
titsay
blakekathryn
2087
andulkaphoto
stormborns
