Jörðgarð Map of the Week #39 - Red Draugs' Tower

MarkOliva

This week, with our 39th Jörðgarð (TM) Map of the Week, we continue looking at the last of the eight dark draug settlements in the ruins of the fallen Æsir Empire, the ruins of Garndi's Crossing. Our focus this week is on the tower of the red draugs there. During the great wars, Mýsing, the baron of Garndi's Crossing, went over to the Darkness and allied with the high draug Martröð, who made of Mýsing one of the nine dark draugs. (A dark draug is similar to an OGL 3.5 lich.) As a result, Mýsing sacrificed his free will and bound it to that of the greater Darkness and Martröð. The high draug fell, but Mýsing still is a slave of the Darkness. He has no desire to turn from evil, but he hopes to regain his free will.

Although Garndi's Crossings no longer exists, Mýsing still claims to rule it, and he still insists that his followers address him with his noble title, baron. That following is a collection of lesser draugs who survived the wars and who remained bound to his will now as they were before Martröð's fall and of evil Slovánski humans who have joined in the baron's new crusade to shed his shackles of Dark domination.

All draugs are to a certain extent insane. Transfiguration into an undead robs a human soul of some of its sanity and makes of it a chaotic creature. Mýsing appears to be more insane than any of the other eight dark draugs, and that manifests itself nowhere so much is in his theory of the nature of life. He has come to believe that the spark of life is the spark of lightning. Thunderstorms occur, according to Mýsing's teachings, as a natural process that continually renews the energy of life within the jörð.

Thus, like Dr. Frankenstein in the book of the same name by 19th Century author Mary Shelley, Mýsing is convinced that he can use lightning to infuse life into a body that no longer is alive. His theory also is that - once he has this technique perfected - he can apply lightning to himself, to restore him from undeath to life. Then, he believes, he will be able to reclaim his own free will, because he no longer will be a draug. After that, he intends to have his followers make a god of him. The red draugs in the tower perform experiments and "interrogate" prisoners for the master, Mýsing.

Key to the Dungeon Plans of the Red Draugs' Tower

Cellar (The skeletons are inanimate and forgotten.)

1. Trapdoor to Ground Floor.

2. Jakes.

3. Well.

Ground Floor

4. Entry. Three orc warriors always stand guard here.

5. Library.

6. Spiral Stairway. From the ground floor upward.

7. Holding Cell. Manacles embedded in the walls hold the prisoners in place. This area is used to hold prisoners who have been brought up from the cellar for dealings with the red draugs.

Second Story

Supply and laboratory area.

8. Entry. One orc warrior always stands guard here.

9. Still. Used to make potions.

10. Supply Storage Area.


Third Floor

Transfiguration and Persuasion area.

11. Transfiguration Chamber. This room is used to transfigure the consenting living into undead draugs. Transfiguration candidates are strapped into the Chair of Transfiguration, to prevent violent nerve reactions that can occur during transfiguration from interrupting the process. Two orc warriors always stand guard here.

12. Persuasion Area. Prisoners who disagree with the red draugs can be strapped into the torture chair or onto the rack, where the draugs can use their tools of persuasion. If the prisoners are chosen for experiments rather than persuasion, they are chained to the operating table in the left part of the chamber

13. Joint Casting Area.


Fourth Floor

Work level.

14. Workbenches. The four red draugs spend a large part of their time working here.


The graphic above is reduced in size. You can get the full-sized maps in two versions:

1. The original Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 maps in FMP format, fully editable, from our Jörðgarð web page (12 MB). This version includes a 12-page PDF pamphlet that tells you how to use the map in FM8.

2. As five JPG flat map, each of 1024 x 970 pixels (Zip total 3.6 MB), available from the NBOS website at:

http://www.nbos.com/nox/download.php?id=394

Both versions are released for personal and commercial use under the Open Game License Version 1.0a, which you can read on the Jörðgarð web site.

The Jörðgarð web site:

http://www.vintyri.org/joerdhgardh/joerdhgardh.htm

Next Week: Garndi's Crossing: Mýsing's tower.