Last Tuesday’s map of the Lost River Cave (West) included a temple run by a religious order of ghouls and ghasts. Today’s map is of the region underneath their temple, where they don’t permit interlopers, adventurers or anyone not of their faith and race.

The immediately noticeable point is that the two stairwells down from the temple above lead into separate sections down here that are not linked.

Secret passages lead to a chamber set directly below the everburning funeral pyre. Entering into this chamber requires a saving throw to avoid being transformed into a ghoul over the next 2d6 hours. The walls of the chamber are made of massive golden ribs – the ribcage of an ancient gold dragon long ago interred here and slowly fossilized into pure necromantic gold.

The skull of the dragon now sits in the centre of the chamber, and in its jaws is a massive ruby wreathed in magical flames. If the ruby is removed in any manner it immediately disintegrates, and the everburning pyre above goes out. Another gem placed here will change the colour of the flames above, but will also be destroyed should it be removed.

Other points of interest include the chamber of the heguman of the temple to the northwest (notably secured from the rest of the temple because the heguman is a potent and unpleasant undead bastard who awakens at most every 13 years, eats a few of his followers, switches out the gem in the dragon head, and then returns to his studies and eventually falls back into his undead slumber), the depression full of bones (mostly humanoid) to the east, and the “Black Well” full of rotted blood just beyond it.

Finally, in the largest chamber on the west side and in the room of the “Black Well” there are a matching pair of 6′ tall obsidian mirrors. While they don’t reflect all that well, they do act as a portal between the two rooms.

A frightening collection of ghouls and ghasts live within this complex as monks, requiring little living space as they either “sleep”, meditate, or pray most of the time. The ghasts never climb to the surface, and generally keep to the eastern complex where their smell mixes in with the rot of the “Black Well” and the pit full of bones.