Landmark Sites - Monument

Described as places of inspiration. Spending a phase here restores Spirit, so they’re typically one of the most straightforwardly beneficial landmarks to come across.

But what if you already have full Spirit? Dwellings and Sanctums can restore Vigour and Clarity respectively, but beyond that they at least have somebody to talk to and get some information from. What else can a monument offer? Well... not much, really, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a nice little flavourful place to encounter. 

So let’s see what happens as we turn one into a site. We’ll start with a random monument prompt from the book. 

Monument Prompt: Buried library. 

Okay, neat, well this is already feeling like it could become a useful place for the Knights to get pointed toward in search of knowledge. 

We’ll mess around with the distribution of the points and routes in there, maybe removing dangers altogether, making it more of a welcoming exploration site.

I’ll roll on a few spark tables to get some extra juice:

Landscape: Dry Bog (!) Flora: Sturdy Brambles Wonder: Temptation Plants

Dry Bog is one of those combinations that doesn’t quite make sense, but I remember rolling it previously and using it as a sort of quicksand. Yeah, it’s not technically dry but remember the point of a spark table is to spark ideas, not give you a canonical answer straight out of the box.

Instead of quicksand here I’m imagining a riverland that’s dried up, now overrun by thick brambles. As the wind blows through them it sounds like whispering voices from within. Our library is “buried” beneath this strange flora, as well as the earth itself. 

Site - The Barrow of Words

Key

Circle: Feature

Triangle: Danger

Diamond: Treasure

Line: Open path

Crossed Line: Closed path

Dotted Line: Hidden path

Arrow: Entrance

Dotted Arrow: Hidden entrance

Overview

Amid the trenches of a dried-up riverland, thick-stemmed brambles block the way, a narrow trail cut through, but always at risk of being covered back up. Wind blowing through this tangle sounds like indistinct whispers. 

Deep within the brambles, a simple standing stone marks a mound. Those who can cut a path through find an open mound, but not for corpses. 

Locations

Entrance 1 (to 1): Requires cutting through a mass of thorns, then an open barrow entrance into the darkness. 

1: Hall of Dead Words - Vast stone tablets inscribed in a long forgotten script. Something about them is comforting, restoring the Spirit of those who look over them or touch them. 

2: The Library - Sprawling racks of tablets in stone, clay, marble, each in a different script, all completely illegible. Any Seer that learns about this urges the Knights to destroy this place. Beneath a collapsed rack a shaft leads down to 4. 

3: The Unlit Stairway - A seemingly endless spiral staircase. Only traveling in total darkness allows passage to the other side. 

4: Librarian Beetle Colony - A great nest of small blue beetles. They scutter harmlessly over any who enter here, investigating them thoroughly, before scurrying up to the Library to scratch cryptic symbols onto the tablets. 

5: Hall of Forbidden Words - A sealed sarcophagus. Opening it up reveals six tablets. Even attempting to read their forgotten script causes d10 Spirit loss. 

6: Muse Fountain - Statues of a child and a skeleton support each side of a great vase. The fountain isn’t working, and the water below sits stagnant.

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