jdnd/sections/12-The Castle with the Steel Door - Castle Green.md

## Castle Green


The PCs will spend a lot of chapter 2 exploring Castle Green. Before we
get to the details of what’s in the castle, we’re going to give you some
general information about what the castle is like, and why it is the way
it is.

### How Castle Green Came to Exist

When Green was first starting out, he didn’t have a Castle. He searched
for people who might be interested in drawing cards from the Deck, then
he brought them out into an empty field to have them draw cards. One
day, one of these people - Alyssa Varn - drew the Bricklayer card. Where
once there was an empty field, suddenly there was a small castle —
technically, a “keep” for a knight. Alyssa sold the Castle to Green.

The keep consisted of a ground floor, a single basement level, and a
small tower.

The basement contained most of the functional rooms, including a
barracks for the staff, a kitchen and dining room, an armory and
sparring room, holding cells, a lounge, a laundry and latrine, a wine
cellar and a root cellar. Here is a map of the basement:

![](media/image11.png){width="5.026042213473316in"
height="3.9483333333333333in"}

The ground floor included a nice dining room for guests, a small
ballroom, an a few general purpose rooms. The tower contained an
observation room and a general-purpose room. Since the ground floor and
tower are gone, we have not provided a map.

Green and his employees used the castle for some time before the next
event: Borghan also drew the Bricklayer card, and it built the
labyrinth, underneath the basement. A trapdoor manifested in the
basement lounge: the trapdoor drops down into the Labyrinth. There is no
map of the labyrinth, it’s a confusing mess of passages, and nobody has
bothered trying to map it.

Both the castle and the labyrinth were created by magic. But neither one
is inherently magical. The castle is a normal castle. The labyrinth is
confusing, but it’s not a magic labyrinth.

The walls of the basement are entirely made of stone blocks. The walls
of the labyrinth are covered by decorative wooden paneling, with
decorative moulding, as one might see in a victorian library. By looking
at the walls, you can easily tell whether you’re in the basement or the
labyrinth.

### The Upstairs is Gone

In the chaos storm, the entire top half of the castle (ground floor and
up) was ripped away. Everything from about knee-level on up is gone.

The floors of the ground floor are still intact, as are the bottom two
feet of the walls. Walking around the ground floor of castle green is a
lot like walking around a floorplan of a castle. There’s very little
left to see on the ground floor. There is, however, a set of stairs
leading down into the basement. The stairs leading to the basement are
entirely intact.

### The Portals that Subdivide the Castle

As a defensive measure against Tymora’s agents, Omta has placed several
portals designed to make it difficult to move around the basement. The
portals all lead into the labyrinth. Look at the map: wherever you see a
red line crossing a hallway, that is a portal to the labyrinth. When a
PC stands in a hallway, looking at such a portal, the PC will see the
hall up to the portal, and the labyrinth beyond the portal. When the PC
walks through the portal, they end up in the labyrinth.

Sometimes, when you’re in the labyrinth, if Omta wants you to, you’ll
emerge from one of these portals and end up back in the basement.

![](media/image11.png){width="5.026042213473316in"
height="3.9483333333333333in"}

Now, let’s talk about how the PCs will perceive the portals. Imagine
that a PC is standing in the hallway just northwest of Mikhail’s
bedroom. (Look at the map above, lower-right corner). If the PC looks
north, they will see the door to Etienne’s bedroom. Beyond that, there’s
a red line crossing the hall: a portal to the labyrinth. When the PC
looks through the portal, they see the labyrinth.

So that means if the PC is standing outside Mikhail’s bedroom, the PC
*can’t* see the door to the furniture storage room. The furniture room
is north of the portal, and therefore, line of sight is blocked by the
portal. Likewise, if the PC walks north, they can’t reach the furniture
storage room. They will walk through the portal first, and end up in the
labyrinth.

So from the perspective of a PC standing outside Mikhail’s bedroom, it
looks like they’re standing in an L-shaped piece of corridor, both ends
of which are connected to the labyrinth. It creates the appearance that
these small sections of hallway are physically inside the labyrinth. It
looks, for all the world, as if the basement has been broken into
pieces, and the pieces randomly inserted into the labyrinth.

Note that on the map, we have drawn red lines not just where the portals
are in the hallways, but we’ve actually drawn red lines around eight
“chunks” of the castle. The PCs will perceive the castle as being made
up of these eight chunks. To move from one chunk to another, they will
have to pass through the labyrinth.

The portals in the basement are in fixed locations, indicated on the map
by red lines. The portals in the labyrinth, however, are in
ever-shifting locations. The portals are being moved around regularly by
Omta. Some of the portals in the labyrinth lead to other portals in the
labyrinth. Some of the portals in the labyrinth lead back to the portals
in the basement. All of the portals in the basement lead to the
labyrinth.

### Navigating the Portals

When the PCs first enter the labyrinth, they will get stuck in there.
They just move in circles: tunnel after tunnel. None of the passages
lead anywhere. Omta is just portaling the PCs around the labyrinth to
keep them confused. He figures: if I keep the agents of Tymora in the
labyrinth, they can’t hurt me.

In the backs of their minds, the PCs can feel the “presence in the
Labyrinth,” Omta, because of their telepathic bond. They can feel his
anxiety and fear. They can try communicating with this presence, and
they quickly realize that the presence is listening, paying attention,
because it reacts when they say things.

To get unstuck, the PCs have to do two things:

**Step 1: Reassure Omta**

When the PCs sense the presence in the labyrinth, and his fear, they
need to say something reassuring, such as “We are not here to hurt you.
We just want to talk.” If the PCs say some things like this, then Omta
will calm down a little. The PCs can feel the anxiety level drop a
little.

**Step 2. Ask for Navigation Assistance**

The following only works *after* the PCs have reassured Omta: to get
around the basement, the PCs can simply ask Omta for assistance in
navigating the labyrinth. Just speak out loud, and say something along
the lines of, “Hey, could you guide us to the Kitchen?” Then, start
walking, in any direction. Omta will rearrange the portals in order to
bring the PCs to the kitchen area. Note that the PCs won’t end up
*exactly* in the kitchen: they’ll end up at the closest basement portal,
in the correct basement region to go to the kitchen.

It’s odd that Omta is putting up portals to confuse the PCs, but then
he’s also helping the PCs to navigate the portals. Omta is asleep, and
he’s using dream logic, and his emotions are conflicted. He wants Tymora
to stay away, but he also wants a relationship with the PCs. So his left
hand doesn’t know what his right hand is doing.

So for now, Omta is both hindering and helping. Whether he can actually
bring you to any particular place depends on a number of factors:

-   In general, if you ask for a room type, like “take me to the
    > Kitchen,” or “take me to the Armory,” that works. Omta understands
    > what a kitchen or an armory is.

-   If you say “take me to the bedroom,” that’s ambiguous, because there
    > are a dozen bedrooms in the castle. In this case, Omta will take
    > you to the bedroom farthest away from the Deck.

-   If you ask for a specific employee, eg, “take me to Zimmi,” that
    > usually elicits no response, because Omta doesn’t know most human
    > names. However, Omta does know the name “Green.”

-   If the PCs ask for an employee by profession, that is more likely to
    > work. “Take me to the wizard’s bedroom” will get you to Etienne’s
    > bedroom.

-   If you ask for “take me to the woman who drew the bricklayer card,”
    > that *does* work. When Omta looks at humans, he is more likely to
    > remember their cards than their names.

-   If the PCs ask for something broad, like “Food”, Omta will do a
    > reasonable job of complying: in response to that query, he would
    > take the PCs to the kitchen. The DM may have to be creative
    > interpreting such queries.

-   If you ask to be taken to Green (who has the Deck), or to the
    > Laundry (which contains the Deck), or to the Lounge (which is
    > close to the Deck), then Omta will project an intense emotion of
    > fear, and will not take you anywhere.

Under no circumstances must you allow the PCs to reach the lounge area
or the laundry area until certain trigger events take place.

### Bypassing the Portals

On the map, there are several red dots, positioned on top of walls.
These represent holes in the walls. During the chaos storm, several of
the stone blocks teleported out of their normal positions in the walls,
and ended up scattered around the castle: as the PCs walk around, they
will occasionally find these stone blocks. A small person like a gnome
or halfling can fit through the hole, but a medium-sized person cannot
fit. The PCs could use spells like *enlarge/reduce* to get the whole
party through a hole.

Interestingly, holes in the wall circumvent the portals. It is possible
to move from one region to another through a hole in the wall, *without*
getting portaled into the labyrinth. Currently, there is only one hole
that crosses a red line. But the PCs could conceivably dig more.

If you use holes to move around the castle, the castle appears much more
mundane than if you try to walk around the halls. The halls have portals
in them, and the portals make everything confusing. But the holes in the
walls have no portals, so you just move around the castle in the normal
way.

However, if the PCs try to dig a hole into the laundry area, a steel
barrier will materialize in the hole, looking much like the main steel
barrier in the hall that leads into the laundry area. Omta really
doesn’t want anyone crossing into the laundry until Omta is ready.

### Green’s Trapped Employees

Several of Green’s employees are trapped in the basement. They are not
in immediate danger, but most of them don’t have access to food and
water, so they do need to be rescued from the castle relatively soon.

When the chaos storm hit, Green yelled “evacuate the castle!” Everyone
upstairs evacuated, however, nobody emerged from the basement,
presumably because the basement had been turned into a confusing magical
labyrinth. Green cares about his employees, he wasn’t about to just let
them rot in the basement. So he and his bodyguards went down in the
basement to round up the employees and get them out. Balanestra went
with them, because she is loving the life of adventure. They vanished
into the basement, and didn’t come back.

They didn’t come back because Omta portaled them to the laundry room
region, and then trapped them inside by building a giant steel door. The
laundry room region now contains Green, his bodyguards, and Balanestra -
and the Deck. They are annoyed and concerned about being trapped, but
are otherwise unharmed. One of the bodyguards, Harkon, is a cleric who
can conjure food and water.

The gate guards, Bran and Inya, watched as Green and his bodyguards went
into the basement. Bran and Inya are much lower-level than Green and the
bodyguards, so they assumed that they weren’t needed. But when Green and
the bodyguards didn’t emerge, Bran and Inya also went down into the
basement, in the hopes of rescuing the others. They too got trapped -
they’re in the sparring room region.

Here is an inventory of all of Green’s employees who are stuck behind
the steel door:

-   Green.

-   Mikhail, Male Half-Orc, Fighter LV8. Natural peacemaker.

-   Etienne Vireaux, Male Tiefling, Diviner LV8. Tries to help people.

-   Siduri, Female High Elf, Duelist LV8. Reserved. Graceful movement.

-   Harkon, Male Dwarf, Cleric of Helm LV8.

-   Balanestra, Female Aasimar, deck-touched.

Here is an inventory of all of Green’s employees who are trapped in the
Basement:

-   Bran, Gate Guard. Male Dwarf. Overly talkative, but helpful.

-   Inya, Gate Guard. Female Tiefling. Has learned to let Bran talk.

-   Zimmi, Cook. Female Gnome. Loud and a little pushy.

-   Edric, Steward and Bookkeeper. Male Bariaur. All business.

-   Penny, Helper. Teen Female Tiefling. Super smart, skill with
    > languages.

Here are the ones that are not in the basement: they are at the Inn in
St. Parnas:

-   Wim, Janitor. Male Kobold. Avoids eye contact.

-   Tommel, Gardener. Male Earth Genasi. Aloof.

Green and his bodyguards are trapped by the big steel barrier. The
others are not physically trapped: they can leave the areas that they’re
in, and go out into the labyrinth. But when they do, they get lost,
wander around for a while, and end up back in the areas where they
started. All of them have tried leaving, and none of them have gotten
anywhere.

To rescue the employees, the PCs will have to find them one by one. The
following section, “List of Basement Areas,” lists every region in the
basement, including which of Green’s employees are trapped in that area.

The reason that Green’s employees are stuck is because they didn’t draw
cards from the deck. Therefore, they lack the telepathic connection to
Omta which makes it possible for the PCs to communicate with Omta. The
PCs are navigating the labyrinth by asking Omta for what they need.
Green’s employees don’t have that option.

### Ants are Taking the Castle by Force

The castle was built very close to an anthill containing intelligent
giant ants.

Prior to the chaos storm, the ants were a minor nuisance at the castle.
Occasionally, a worker would enter the castle via the root cellar, take
some food from a storage room, and leave. Stealing is not actually
sanctioned by the ant queen, but some workers aren’t that bright.
Green’s employees view the ants as a relatively insignificant issue -
pretty much how you would feel if your kitchen had ants.

However, the chaos storm has upended the situation. The chaos storm has
severely damaged the complex series of tunnels in their anthill, it’s
caving in all over the place. The ant queen is angry, and she is intent
on being compensated for the damage: you castle idiots destroyed our
anthill, so we’re taking over yours! The ants are moving into the
castle.

These ants are not, by nature, hostile creatures. Construction,
maintenance, farming: those are the things they normally care about. The
ants attitude toward other ants is “be a productive member of the
community.” Their attitude toward non-ants is “live and let live.” By
that, we mean that if you are not an ant, they won’t go out of their way
to help you, but they won’t do anything to hurt you either. They will
most likely just walk right past you, too busy to talk. Overall, they
are somewhere between true neutral (to outsiders), and lawful good (to
each other). However, the queen is angry about the destruction of her
home. Even so, she is not bloodthirsty. She intends to take the castle
by force, but she is willing to let the humans go away without bloodshed
as long as the humans are willing to depart.

The ants can tell that the PCs don’t live in the castle, and that
they’re not the ones responsible for the chaos. They know that when a
person lives in a house for a long time, the odors rub off on each
other: the house begins to smell like the person, and the person begins
to smell like the house. Because of this, they can tell that the PCs
don’t live in the castle. The queen’s anger is toward the people in the
castle who caused the chaos storm, not toward the PCs. Because of this,
the ants will generally pass the PCs without aggression.

Ants do not perceive mammals or other animals as prey. The ants are
fungus farmers, they eat a fungus that they grow on a substrate of
rotting organic matter.

There are three types of ants: workers, soldiers, and the queen. Workers
are about the size of a small dog, soldiers are about the size of a
large dog, and the queen is the size of a small horse.

The ants are intelligent, and can communicate, but they do not speak
verbal languages: they communicate by waving their antennae. You will
need some tricks if you want to talk to them. Here are some potentially
relevant spells:

-   *Tongues*: This will allow full communication.

-   *Comprehend Languages*: This will allow you to understand everything
    > they say. However, it won’t enable them to understand you.

-   *Speak with Animals*: Doesn’t work. They’re too intelligent to count
    > as animals.

The queen is smart enough to be creative about communication. For
example, if you cast *comprehend languages*, she will say, “That spell
doesn’t enable *me* to understand *you*, so I’ll ask you questions, and
you can raise your right hand for yes, and left hand for no.” The
workers and soldiers are not bright enough to come up with tricks like
that, but if the PCs suggest things like that, the workers and soldiers
are smart enough to play along.

Worker and soldier mentality is extremely task-focused, and very
specialized. For example, the workers will give sophisticated
explanations of the steps necessary to cultivate food fungus, they can
go on at length about the antibiotic properties of the plants they use
to prevent biological contamination. But the workers only understand the
basics about things unrelated to their job. For example, if you ask them
what happened to their anthill: “Things were moving everywhere,
including the walls. It seemed like magic. It’s all crumbling.” No
deeper insight. Soldiers are extremely knowledgeable about tactics. In
combat, they don’t just attack mindlessly: they use their special
abilities and the environment to get the best advantage they can get.
But they really have very little to say about anything that doesn’t
involve defense or security.

Only the queen is smart enough to speak broadly on a range of topics.
She can cast a few spells, too. One of those is comprehend languages.
She can hear and understand what the PCs are saying, even if the PCs
have no way to translate. However, she can’t *talk* to the PCs without
assistance. She can, however, communicate if the PCs suggest things such
as “raise your right antenna for yes, raise your left antenna for no.”

The ants have surprisingly little trouble moving around the castle. They
are just as subject to the portals as anyone else, but they navigate
almost entirely by odor chemicals. For example, if they’re looking for
the queen, they sniff the air for the scent of the queen, and they walk
toward the scent. When the portals move, the scents move, and so they
can easily follow the scents even if the portals have moved. They do
have to go through the portals, but they’re just not as confused as a
human would be.

Another thing the ants can do is form a long line of ants. When they do
this, forming a trail of ants through the labyrinth, Omta seems hesitant
to break the line by moving a portal. He prefers to move portals when
nobody is watching, and the ants are forming a continuous line of
“watchers.” In effect, the line of ants becomes an island of stability
in the labyrinth. You can get to new places by walking alongside a trail
of ants.

The ants could break through stone walls, but it would be a very slow
process of tedious grinding. They haven’t done this yet. Instead, they
prefer to enter through existing openings. The best entrance to the
castle (for the ants) is the root cellar, which has an earthen floor.
The floor of the root cellar is full of ant-sized holes, and the wooden
door of the root cellar has an soldier-ant-sized hole chewed through it.
The queen did not go through the hole in the door: the queen is smart
enough to know how to open human doors.\
\
The ants have selected Green’s bedroom as the queen’s new chambers. They
have a large number of soldiers on both sides of the bedroom door,
blocking all access. You can enter the lounge, but no further. The queen
is their most valued asset, and they protect her aggressively. They are
incidentally blocking access to Edric’s bedroom as well, but that’s only
because the door happens to be in the same hallway as Green’s bedroom.

The ants have selected Tommel, Bran, and Wim’s bedroom as the new brood
chamber. The room is full of eggs. Again, there are soldiers on both
ends of the hallway, because this is a high-value area.

The ants have selected the Kitchen as the new fungus farm. The workers
are swarming in there, moving rotting organic matter into the kitchen.
There are a handful of soldiers in the kitchen, but they’re not blocking
access to the kitchen: the fungus farm isn’t a high-value asset. They’re
just there to protect the workers.

Here are some hallway encounters:

-   Two soldier ants come down the hall, followed by a group of workers.
    > The workers are carrying rotting plant material. The soldiers
    > approach, and move to one side of the hallway. They then look at
    > you, and wait to see what you do. (If the PCs move to the other
    > side of the hallway, the ants will simply walk past).

-   A long line of worker ants carrying eggs come down the hallway. They
    > stop, and start waving their antennae around. Then they turn
    > around, and head back in the opposite direction.

-   A group of six soldiers and four workers come down the hall. Two
    > soldiers are injured (they have been in a fight with Borghan). The
    > workers are helping the injured soldiers. They see you, and pause.
    > Then the four healthy soldiers approach. They close their
    > mandibles, and use them to shove you into a corner. Then, they
    > pass.

Feel free to improvise more.

The ants are not central to the PCs’ quest. They are there to let the
PCs know that the world is alive, and there are people everywhere who
have their own agendas and their own issues.

Although the ants are not central to the PCs quest, they can
theoretically be helpful to the PCs. For example, if the PCs figure out
how to talk to the queen, they may be able to arrange some sort of
cooperative expedition to deal with Borghan (the queen would be very
happy to have Borghan under control.) The PCs may also be able to work
with the ants to dig holes in the walls, to make it easier to navigate
the castle.

\<TODO: Add stat blocks for the Ants\>