THE BATHS AT BRINYELL
For 3-6 characters, levels 2-4. System-agnostic, OSR-compatible.
A hillside bathhouse, once famous, built over natural hot springs. Abandoned thirty years ago when the waters turned yellow and foul. Three groups occupy it now, none of them happy about the others.
Hook: Gerta One-Hand, a former mercenary, sends word from the baths. She and her people (outcasts, lepers, the sick) settled there for the healing waters. The waters are getting worse. Something below is poisoning the source. She offers the party 200gp and free use of the baths (which do heal, when clean) to fix the problem. She cannot go herself. She has seven fingers between two hands and a cough that won't stop.
FACTIONS
Gerta's Band (Upper Level). Eight sick and desperate people led by a hard woman who won't beg. They've barricaded the stairwell. They want the water fixed. They will negotiate, trade information, and lend a hand if the party seems competent. They will fight if cornered. They are afraid of the mudlings. They don't know about the salamander.
The Mudlings (Middle Level). Twelve small clay-bodied humanoids who formed in the mineral pools over decades. They worship the spring as their mother. They smear themselves in warm mud and sing to the pipes. They are territorial but curious. They will trade (warm mud, information about the lower level) for shiny things (coins, gems, glass, anything that catches light). They hate Gerta's band for "stealing mother's tears" (using the water). They know the salamander is down there. They call it "the fever."
The Salamander (Lower Level). Not a D&D salamander. A ten-foot eyeless amphibian that absorbs heat. Its skin exudes sulfurous toxin. It crawled up from a deep fissure and lodged itself in the spring source because the hot water feels good. It is not intelligent. It is not evil. It is an animal that found a warm place to sleep, and its body chemistry is ruining the water for everyone else. Killing it is the obvious solution. Luring it out is harder but possible. The mudlings will not help kill it (it lives in their mother) but will help lure it.
ORDER OF BATTLE
Gerta's Band: If they hear fighting on the upper level, Gerta and two of her strongest (Hauk, Jol) move to the barricade in Room 4 and hold it. The rest hide in Room 3. If the party fights the mudlings, Gerta opens the barricade to let the party retreat upward but locks it behind them. She does not send her people into danger they didn't start.
Mudlings: If one is attacked, it shrieks (audible throughout the middle level). All mudlings converge on the noise within 2 rounds. If outnumbered or outmatched, they retreat into the pipe system (Room 8), where they can move freely and humans cannot. From the pipes, they throw handfuls of scalding mud at anyone in Rooms 5, 6, or 7. They do not pursue onto the upper or lower levels.
The Salamander: Does not respond to noise. Responds to heat. A lit torch brought within 20 feet draws its attention. Two or more torches make it move toward the heat source. It can be led, slowly, using a trail of fire.
MAP
UPPER LEVEL (Gerta's territory)
================================
HILLSIDE +----------+
\\ | 3. |
\\ +-----------+ | GERTA'S |
\\-+ 1. +---+ CAMP |
| PORTICO | | |
| (entry) | +----+-----+
+-----+-----+ |
| +----+-----+
+-----+-----+ | 4. |
| 2. +---+ STAIR |
| CHANGING | | HALL |
| ROOM | | *barri- |
+-----------+ | cade* |
+----+-----+
|
MIDDLE LEVEL (contested) ~~~~|~water~
================================
|
+----------+ +----+-----+
| 5. +-------+ 6. |
| WARM | | GREAT |
| POOL | | BATH +--+
+----+-----+ +----+-----+ |
| | |
+----+-----+ +----+-----+ |
| 8. | | 7. +--+
| PIPE +-------+ COLD |
| JUNCTION | | POOL |
+----+-----+ +----------+
|
+----+-----+
| 9. |
| MUDLING |
| GROTTO |
+----+-----+
|
LOWER LEVEL (salamander) ~~~~|~sulfur~
================================
|
+----+-----+
| 10. |
| STEAM |
| VENTS |
+----+-----+
|
+----+-----+
| 11. |
| THE |
| SOURCE |
+----------+
KEY:
+---+ = doorway ~~~~~ = water level
* * = barricade | = stairs or passage
PIPE NETWORK (cross-section, inside walls)
Pipes run through the walls connecting the pools
to the spring source. Most are 2' diameter (too
small for humans, fine for mudlings and worms).
One pipe from Room 8 to Room 10 is 3' diameter:
a human can crawl through it, barely, in darkness,
through scalding condensation. Takes 3 turns.
The mudlings use the pipes freely. They can
appear at any pool-room opening without warning.
[5]---[8]---[6]
|
[10]---[11]
|
[7]
ROOM KEY
1. The Portico
Cracked columns frame the entrance, thick with lichen. A mosaic floor (mostly intact) depicts bathers in blue water. The grout between tiles is warm to the touch. The air coming from inside smells of sulfur and wet stone.
- Columns. Four. One has shifted and leans against the hillside. A firm shove (combined STR 25+) brings it down, blocking the entrance. Gerta's band has discussed doing this. They haven't because it would trap them inside.
- Mosaic. Anyone examining it notices the water in the mosaic was originally painted blue but someone has scratched yellow over parts of it. Recently. With a fingernail. (A mudling, marking the corruption.)
- Sulfur smell. Gets stronger deeper in. Characters who have smelled rotten eggs recognize it. Characters with mining or alchemy experience know it indicates volcanic activity or mineral contamination.
2. The Changing Room
Stone benches along the walls, wooden cubbies above them (most rotted). The floor is damp. Puddles of yellowish water collect in the low spots. Clothing hooks are hammered into the stone, some still holding rags. A rat's nest under the far bench.
- Cubbies. One cubby in the back still has a dry compartment. Inside: a leather purse containing 12sp and a bronze comb (5gp, Brinyell civic crest on the handle). The coins are thirty years old.
- Puddles. The water is warm and smells faintly of sulfur. Not dangerous in small amounts. Drinking it causes stomach cramps for 1d4 hours (no mechanical effect, just misery).
- Rat's nest. 3 normal rats, no treasure, but the nest is built around a clay pipe fragment with a mudling handprint on it. First sign that something other than rats lives here.
3. Gerta's Camp
Bedrolls on stone benches, a cook fire (cold, to avoid smoke), Gerta sitting on an overturned washtub sharpening a knife with her three-fingered left hand. Four of her people are here: Hauk (big, quiet, missing an ear), Jol (thin, coughs blood), Maret (elderly, blind in one eye, knows herblore), Dosk (twelve years old, not sick, here because Gerta is his aunt).
- Gerta. Talks like a sergeant. Doesn't waste words. She tells the party: the water was good six months ago. Now it's yellow, smells wrong, and makes the coughs worse instead of better. Something changed below. She sends Hauk with them if they ask (HD 2, hand axe, loyal, doesn't talk). She will not send Dosk. She will not go herself.
- Maret. If asked, she describes what the water used to be like: warm, clear, tasted of iron, healed skin lesions in a week of daily soaking. She thinks something is living in the source. She has heard "singing in the pipes" at night. (The mudlings.)
- Supplies. Six days of dried fish, a cask of clean water (from rain), a battered shield, a hand axe, a jar of rendered fat (usable as 4 torches' worth of fuel). Gerta will trade supplies for information about what's below.
4. The Stair Hall
Wide stone steps descend through a barrel-vaulted passage. Halfway down, Gerta's band has built a barricade of broken benches, a door ripped off its hinges, and stones. A bronze grate in the floor lets warm air rise from below. Water trickles down the steps.
- Barricade. Blocks the passage. Takes 1 turn to dismantle quietly, 2 rounds to smash through (noisy, alerts mudlings). Gerta has a gap she can open from the upper side.
- Bronze grate. Looking through it: a 15-foot drop to the Great Bath (Room 6). A mudling might be visible below, smearing mud on the walls. The grate is corroded and could be kicked loose (STR check). Dropping through bypasses the barricade but the landing is into shallow, warm, sulfurous water. 1d4 damage from the fall, plus the noise alerts every mudling on the level.
- Water on steps. Warm. Gets warmer further down. The bottom three steps are slippery (DEX check or fall prone, alerting mudlings if barricade is already passed).
5. The Warm Pool
A rectangular pool, ten feet by twenty, cut into the stone floor. The water is thigh-deep, yellowish, and warm. Steam curls off the surface. The tiles around the pool are cracked and heaved upward where mineral deposits have grown underneath them. A pipe opening in the east wall, two feet across, dribbles warm water. A clay idol sits on the pool's edge.
- Water. Warm bath temperature. Sulfurous but not dangerous for short exposure. Soaking for an hour causes mild nausea. The yellow color is from the salamander's toxin, carried up through the pipes.
- Pipe opening. Too small for a human. A mudling can enter and exit freely. Connects to Room 8. Warm water flows out of it constantly. Blocking the pipe (with a bedroll, a body, etc.) stops the flow and causes the water level in Room 9 to rise over 1d6 turns, which panics the mudlings.
- Clay idol. A lumpy figure, eight inches tall, vaguely humanoid. Made by the mudlings. Represents "mother" (the spring). Taking it or breaking it enrages any mudling who sees it happen. Leaving a shiny offering beside it (any coin or gem) buys 1 turn of goodwill from any mudling encountered afterward.
CLAY IDOL
,--.
( oo )
| |
/| |\
/ | | \ ~ 8 inches tall
/ | | \ ~ weighs 2 lbs
/ +--+ \ ~ warm to the touch
| |
| |
_| |_
|______|
6. The Great Bath
The main chamber. Vaulted ceiling with a painted sky (stars, faded). A large central pool, twenty feet across, chest-deep. The water is warm and murky yellow. Columns ring the pool (six, three cracked). The south wall has partially collapsed, rubble in the water. A bronze fish-head spout on the north wall, dry.
- Pool. Deeper than the others. The bottom is slippery tile. Something glints in the murky water near the collapsed wall: a silver hand-mirror (25gp, Gerta recognizes it if shown, belonged to a woman in her band who died two months ago. She drowned. Gerta does not know why she was in the pool at night.)
- Collapsed wall. The rubble blocks a former passage to the east. Clearing it (2 turns, noisy) opens a shortcut to Room 7. The rubble is unstable. There is a 1-in-6 chance per turn of clearing that a stone falls and deals 1d6 to a random worker.
- Fish-head spout. Dry. The pipe behind it is clogged with mineral deposits. Breaking the deposits open (hammer, chisel, or force) releases a gush of hot water (save vs. breath or take 1d4 scald damage) and then a steady flow of clean-ish, hot water. This spout connects directly to the source, bypassing the contaminated pipe system. The water from it is cleaner than any other source in the dungeon (still warm, faintly mineral, but drinkable).
- Ceiling. The painted stars include one that is real: a glass gem (fake, worthless, but pretty) set into the plaster. Visible only if someone looks up with a light source. A mudling has been trying to reach it (scratch marks on the nearest column).
7. The Cold Pool
Misnamed. The water is lukewarm now (it was cold when the baths operated). A shallow rectangular pool. The water is the clearest in the dungeon, only slightly yellow, because this pool is furthest from the source. Mosaic dolphins on the pool floor, still vivid. A pipe opening (2') in the west wall, crusted with mineral buildup.
- Water. Best water in the dungeon for drinking or bathing. Soaking here for 1 hour heals 1 HP (once per day per character). The old healing properties are weakest here but still present.
- Pipe. Connects to Room 8 through the wall. Partially blocked by minerals. A mudling can squeeze through. A halfling could, painfully. Humans cannot.
- Dolphins. The mosaic is intact and beautiful. Worth nothing unless someone can remove the floor (they can't, practically). But a character who examines the mosaic notices one dolphin is swimming away from the others, toward the south wall. Behind the south wall: Room 8. The dolphin points to the secret door.
- Secret door (south wall). A stone panel that pivots on a central pin. Stiff but functional. Opens into Room 8. The mudlings know about it. There are muddy handprints at knee-height on the wall near it.
8. The Pipe Junction
A maintenance room. Three large pipes (3' diameter) converge here, entering from the walls at odd angles. The room is cramped, hot, dripping. The air is thick enough to taste. Mudling footprints everywhere in the wet grime on the floor. A valve wheel on the central pipe, green with corrosion.
- Pipes. North pipe: leads to Room 5 (narrows to 2' after 10 feet). South pipe: leads to Room 10, full diameter the whole way, 3 feet wide. A human can crawl through it. It takes 3 turns, in darkness, through scalding condensation (1d2 damage per turn from heat, save halves). This is the fastest route to the salamander. The mudlings use it constantly. East pipe: leads to Room 7 (narrows, impassable).
- Valve wheel. Turning it (requires STR check, it's stiff) shuts off flow to Rooms 5 and 6 and redirects all water to Room 7. This drains the warm pool over 2 turns and floods the cold pool over 4 turns. More importantly, it cuts off the water the mudlings use for their mud-baths in Room 9. They will investigate within 1d4 turns and will be angry.
- Secret door (north wall). Leads to Room 7. See that entry.
9. The Mudling Grotto
This was a storage room. Now it is a mud pit. The mudlings have diverted water across the floor and mixed it with clay from the walls until the whole room is a warm, shallow basin of reddish-brown mineral mud. The ceiling is low. Twelve mudlings are here at any given time, unless some have been drawn elsewhere. They sit in the mud, smear it on themselves, and sing in atonal, piping voices.
A MUDLING
.---.
|° _ °| ~ 2.5 feet tall
| v | ~ clay-skinned, moist
'---' ~ smells like wet earth
__| |__ and hot pennies
| |
| ~ | ~ decorates body with
| ~ ~ | pressed coins, glass,
|_________| pebbles
|| ||
|| ||
_|| ||_
| \/ |
- Mudlings. They stare at intruders. If the party offers something shiny, the nearest mudling accepts it, presses it into its chest (where it sticks in the clay), and chirps. This is a greeting. Trade is now possible. If the party touches the mud without offering a gift, the mudlings hiss and throw scalding mud (1d3 damage, 10' range).
- Mud. The mud is warm and mineral-rich. A poultice of it, applied to a wound, heals 1 HP overnight (once per wound). Gerta's people know this. They have been trying to get mud from this room and the mudlings keep driving them off. A jar of the mud is worth 10gp to an apothecary.
- What the mudlings know. If traded with successfully (cost: 1 shiny thing per question), they answer in broken Common. "Fever lives below." "Fever makes mother sick." "We cannot touch fever. Too hot, too wrong." "Fever came from the deep crack, six moons ago." They will guide the party to Room 10 if given 5+ shiny things.
- Treasure. Pressed into the mud floor: 34cp, 8sp, two glass beads (worthless), and a gold earring (15gp) that once belonged to one of Gerta's people. The mudlings will not let anyone dig in the mud without a fight.
10. The Steam Vents
A natural cavern, widened by chisel. The floor is grated bronze (original construction, for drainage). Steam jets from three vents in the floor at irregular intervals. Visibility is poor (10' in torchlight). The air temperature is extreme. Unprotected characters take 1 HP per turn from heat unless they wet themselves down first. The passage to Room 11 is a rough stone corridor, descending, wet, very warm.
- Steam vents. They fire in a pattern: left, right, center, pause, repeat. Takes 1 round of observation to learn the timing. Moving through without timing it: save vs. breath or 1d6 scald damage per vent crossed. Moving through with timing: safe.
- Grated floor. Through the grate, 3 feet below: slow-moving hot water flowing toward Room 11. The grate can be pulled up (STR check per section). Below it, the channel is passable but the water is painfully hot (1d4 per round of wading). It connects to Room 11 without passing through the corridor.
- Pipe opening. The 3' pipe from Room 8 exits here, above floor level. A human who crawled through it tumbles out onto the grated floor, wet and scalded but alive.
11. The Source
A domed natural chamber. The hot spring fills most of the floor: a pool fifteen feet across, steaming, the water deep yellow and reeking of sulfur. The water is very hot (1d6 damage per round of immersion). At the bottom of the pool, visible as a dark shape through the murk: a fissure in the rock, two feet wide. The salamander is coiled around the fissure's edge, half-submerged.
THE SALAMANDER
. . .
. . . . . . . (sulfur vapors)
. . . . . . . .
___________________
/ \
/ ~ o o ~ \ ~ 10 ft long
| ~ (eyeless, smooth) ~| ~ pale, translucent
\ ~ \_________/ ~ / ~ skin glistens
\ ~ |||| ~ / ~ exudes yellow toxin
\ ~~ ___||||___ ~~/
\ / \ / Curled around fissure
\/ ~~~~~~ \/ at bottom of pool
| ~ water ~ |
| ~~~~~~~~ |
\__________/
HD 5 | AC 3 [16] | Bite 1d8 + grab
Constrict 1d6/round (auto on grab)
Immune to fire. Toxin cloud (see below).
- The salamander. Eyeless. Pale. Ten feet long, thick as a man's torso. Skin is translucent and slick with yellow mucus (the toxin contaminating the water). It is not hostile unless touched, attacked, or if a heat source (torch, lantern) comes within 20 feet, at which point it lunges toward the heat.
- Toxin cloud. When wounded, the salamander exudes a cloud of sulfurous gas in a 15' radius. Save vs. poison or blinded and retching for 1d4 rounds. The cloud dissipates in 2 rounds.
- Fighting it in the pool is suicidal (scalding water + constriction + toxin). Luring it out of the pool with fire and fighting it on the stone corridor is smarter. Luring it all the way to Room 10 and closing the vents (jamming the grates over them) traps it in a cooling room where it becomes sluggish (half movement, no constriction) after 3 rounds.
- The fissure. With the salamander gone, the water clears over 1d6 hours. The fissure leads deeper (referee's discretion: another dungeon level, or just hot rock). A faint breeze comes from it. Something else might eventually crawl up.
- Luring, not killing. If the mudlings are allied, they offer an alternative: they will sing to the salamander through the pipes while the party uses fire to guide it toward the fissure. If it is pushed back down the fissure rather than killed, the mudlings seal the fissure with clay. This takes a combined effort (party drives it with fire from above, mudlings sing from the pipes to confuse its tremorsense from below). The mudlings consider this the correct solution. Gerta considers it a temporary fix.
TREASURE SUMMARY
| Location | Treasure |
|---|---|
| Rm 2 | 12sp, bronze comb (5gp) |
| Rm 5 | Clay idol (trade value only) |
| Rm 6 | Silver hand-mirror (25gp), glass gem (worthless) |
| Rm 7 | Healing waters (1 HP/day/character) |
| Rm 9 | 34cp, 8sp, gold earring (15gp), healing mud (10gp/jar) |
| Rm 3 | Gerta's payment: 200gp on completion |
| Rm 11 | The spring itself. Once cleared, the baths function again. Gerta offers the party permanent free access. One week of daily bathing heals any disease or chronic wound. This is worth more than gold to the right person. |
Total coin: ~270gp equivalent, plus the healing baths as an ongoing resource.
AFTERMATH
If the salamander is killed or driven back, the water clears within a day. Word spreads. Within a month, Brinyell starts getting visitors again: sick people, travelers, eventually merchants. Gerta becomes something like a mayor. She doesn't enjoy it. She sends the party a letter three months later asking if they know anyone who wants to run a bathhouse, because she is a soldier, not an innkeeper.
If the mudlings are harmed or driven off, the pipes clog with mineral buildup within six months. The baths fail. If the mudlings are befriended, they maintain the pipes forever and become a local curiosity. Travelers leave them coins and they are pleased.
If the fissure is left open, something else comes up in 1d6 months. Referee's choice.
Fin
Nikhil Saxena
Founder, Destrier Studios
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