February Entry: Werthers Skull

[Redrobes]

I spent some time thinking about what sort of place to make and I wanted something a little more unusual than an inn. As I mentioned in the synopsis, my party were forever clearing out old places and converting them. The most notable of these was Obsidian Castle which was taken from a picture by a local fantasy artist called Rodney Matthews.

http://www.rodneymatthews.com/gfx/elric5.jpg

Last month I mentioned HeMan and thought that Castle GraySkull might be silly enough or maybe Skeletors Snake Mountain... which led me to think that I remembered that there was another very similar Matthews piece that had this great skull castle in it called Werthers Skull.

http://www.rodneymatthews.com/gfx/elric7.jpg

So this looks like just the place that some evil arch wizard might have made for a home and a medium to high level set of adventurers might hole up. A place that is so remote and barren that no ordinary person would travel to. Perhaps its on another plane of existence where there are a thousand miles of wilderness and desert from every direction.

So I have sketched it out again and tried to figure out what it looks like from the front and put in some levels. I have decided that the skull is the petrified remains of a real skull and that there exists the whole body under the earth. The spiral stairway is a metal framed type that travels down the spinal column going deep into the ground though it has long ago caved in and filled it up from the lowest available level. The party has never tried to excavate it beyond this point.

I'll add some more detail to the levels as a proper map shortly.