Tantalow didn’t like sharing the island. He wanted it to be all under his control.

One day he developed a method for opening a magic Gate.

He should have worked on learning more about it and the possible worlds and planes he could contact.

He wanted to fool the newcomers, so he disguised himself as a 6’ tall bunny rabbit. To help them be unafraid.

Bad Idea.

The beings who came through loved to hunt.

Their strange weapons made loud noises, and fired high speed pellets.

Some of Tantalow’s subjects who were watching from a distance, slowly backed into the nearby forest. Others sounded the danger horns. Those horns were one of the few things common to all 3 groups. And used during major emergencies affecting all of them.

Didn’t do them much good.

The attackers went after anyone armed. Spell casters took out many of them. Then the Gate was closed. But not before a metal object came out, it had a moving turning gun. Larger than the ones carried by the invaders. It blasted a few places, then broke down. It was set afire with oil lamps thrown at it.

One group of the invaders threw round metal objects into the water near Tash Bay, to go fishing with. Minor earthquakes resulted.

Something, or several somethings, deep in the water cast mucus nets up onto shore and dragged some of the invaders into the sea. Larger explosives were tossed into the sea.

Archers of The Confederation took this opportunity to fire arrows into the invaders. Some died, but so did many of the archers.

Some Islanders fled by boat, some were spotted by the invaders. Some got out of range of the weapons, some didn’t.

The ones who fled to the Shaking Islands drowned when the islands sank into the depths.

Earthquakes rocked the island, knocking some mountains down. Another island rose to the surface over many months.

Suddenly bolts of lightning rained down from a clear blue sky. What was left of the stones making up the Gate vaporized. The nearby monolith ring was untouched.

The mountains on Splanto Island vanished. Some say they rose into the sky.

Over many years the original inhabitants once again rose from the ashes. Some went out to the new island and settled there. Some of the original evil inhabitants survived. Most of the good survived. None of the invaders.

Many a brave islander died setting traps or attacking the invaders with makeshift weapons. Some used their bare hands. Evil and Good cooperated against the common enemy. They were no longer so quick to attack one another, even after the common goal of taking out the other planet invaders was complete. Stories were told of their sacrifice for many long years.

As a reminder to not meddle in magic that can create Gates, they called the islands Tantalow’s Island Group.

Tantalow would be remembered, but not exactly like he wanted.

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Notes on Shaking Islands:

Foundations out of sandstone and limestone. Ocean currents and wave action over the centuries had weakened their under pinnings.

The earthquakes shattered the sandstone, leading to the islands’ collapse into the sea.

Tantalow Island is a sea mount. The Shaking Islands were leftovers from the sea mount forming and were poised on one side of the sea mount. Not substantially connected to Tantalow, they barely hung there… just waiting for a strong earthquake or explosion to cause them to fall apart and sink into the sea. The invaders caused earthquakes that lost them forever. Down in the depths are bones, the goods, coins, armor, and weapons that haven’t rotted or rusted, of those islanders who fled the invaders.

The other islands are sea mounts not connected to Tantalow.

back to Tantalow’s Island Group

The castle is northwest of Hommlet. Its walls are 10 feet thick and 30 feet high. It looks like cut and laid stone, but its actually cut from one large block of stone. For the DM: The walls are not hollow, no passageways anywhere on the surface part of the castle.

The drawbridge leading out from land towards the gate looks old and decrepit. Its magical. To get it to close the gap, the magic words: ‘Close Sesame !’ should be spoken by one or more of the characters.

The gate door is of rotted wood. The characters can easily see the 10 foot by 10 foor by 10 foot orange cube.

Three crows are visible on one of the towers. After the party gets inside, one of the crows will fly over to the orange cube, land on it, and then be absorbed.

Only Holy Water and arrows harm the cube. Swords do it no damage and blunt weapons bounce. Treat the cube as if it has 20 hit points.

When all 20 hp are gone from the cube, it will dissolve revealing a 10 foot stair leading downwards at a 18.4 degree slope. It drops 30 feet in 10 feet horizontal distance.

Level 1 is 30 feet below the surface of the cube. Corridors are 10 feet high.

Room 1) 10’ × 10’ × 10’ ( 1,000 cubic feet ) dusty

statue of a large bear.
Any touch activates a magic mouth: ‘dog growl’

Room 2) 10’ × 10’ × 10’ ( 1,000 cubic feet ) dusty

Room 3) 50’ × 30’ × 20’ ( 30,000 cubic feet ) 10’ below rest of level

2 statues of skeletons, between them is a chest.

They turn into one giant skeleton if the chest is opened.

AC 4, 12” move, 1d12 damage, 12’ tall, HD 4+4, has26 hp
v Chest: 1’× 2’ × 1.5’ high
30 gp, 6 pp, 150 sp, all Trillolaran coins

Room 4) 10’ × 50’ × 20’ – 10’ × 70’ × 20’ - 10’ × 90’ × 20’( 48,000 cubic feet )

The corridor section marked by the white arrow and line slopes downward for 50’ at a 11.3 degree slope.

behind the 10’ wide area are 2 gelatinous cubes
one has a shield +1 and one gold ring worth 125 gp in it
the other has: 43 gp, 125 sp, 275 cp, 10 pp, sheild +1 in it.

Room 5) 3’ × 3’ × 3’ ( 27 cubic feet )

room is about 4’ above floor of corridor.

small box: 1’ × 1’ × 1’ lock is -10 percent to open
230 gp

Room 6) 20’ × 30’ ×20’ ( 12,000 cubic feet ) dusty, snake tracks

Room 7) 50’ × 30’ × 20’ ( 30,000 cubic feet ) dusty, gnoll footprints

Room 8) 20’ × 70’ × 20’ ( 28,000 cubic feet )

green snake painted on floor, headed towards spider painting on wall.

Spider detects as strong magic, but doesn’t do anything.
A woman’s face is on the spider, where a spider’s face should be.

Room 9) 20’ × 10’ × 10’ – 20’ × 30’ × 30’ ( 20,000 cubic feet )

on south wall is a rectangle of 2 vertical and 4 horizontal squares:
Red White Blue White
White Green White Orange

If Red, then Green, then Blue, then White squares are touched,
a Gong sounds.

No other affect. Just roll the dice and smile.

Room 10) 4’ × 4’ × 3’ ( 48 cubic feet )

about 5 feet above the stairs. Push on left to open.
Stairs next to this room are: 30 feet long, drop a total of 2.75 feet [ 2’ 9” ],
and slope at an angle of 5.24 degrees.

Large lever on back wall. Move lever to right.
Wall down by the large A will open.

The stairs so revealed lead downward to level 2.
Angle is 15 degrees for 110 feet, drop of 30 feet.

Level 1: converting all items found to gold gives: 523.125 gp equivalent

Level 2 is 62.75 feet below level 1 (bottom of corridor). All of level 2 smells slightly moldy.

Room 1) 30’ × 30’ × 30’ ( 27,000 cubic feet )

Various tic-tac-toe games ( circles and naughts) are carved into the stone floor. All with ‘X’ winning. At the last of the 30 games, one skeleton lies there with an axe in its head.

Its a trap: if the axe is removed:

The skeleton activates.

If the skeleton is not killed by the end of round 2 of combat,
it becomes 2 skeletons which must be killed by the end of the
second round of combat after the second skeleton arrives or they
become a total of 4 skeletons.

No more appear, no treasure.

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Room 2) 45’ × 60’ × 20’ ( 54,000 cubic feet )

set of stairs in the center of the room
The stairs are 8’ wide, each tread and riser are 2’.
The entire stair is 8’ high.

Stepping on step one produces rings a chime in the key of E.
Step 2 rings a chime in the key of E
Step 3 rings a chime in the key of E
Step 4 rings a chime in the key of C

[ Which ‘spells’ eeec ! ]

If an elf presses down on the top step, a small cavity opens:
inside is a small locked box, normal chances to open:
two 500 gp gems, one of which glows in the dark.

The door that leads to room 4 has a warning sign on it

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Room 3) 20’ × 50’ × 10’ ( 10,000 cubic feet )

a bumpy floor. The bumps range from one inch in height
to 6 inches high. Nothing else here. (The bumps don’t do
anything, its just to puzzle the players.)

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Room 4) 30’ × 20’ × 200’ ( 120,000 cubic feet )

The hallway entrance is at the top of the room. A character who doesn’t use a rope or spell to lower themselves takes 3.6 seconds to fall. 20d6 hp damage. Magic Armor gets +1 to SR per plus. If make SR vs. paralyzation, take half damage.

There are no gravity changes, no handholds.

Chest in the far part of the room: 3’ × 5’ × 3’, locked.

Chain mail + 2, long sword +2, shield + 1
550 gp, 724 sp, 1,000 cp worth 1.1 times Trillolaran coins.
( coinage worth 650.32 gp if change them for Trillolaran coins in Trillolara,
worth 591.2 gp if just use them. )
one 125 gp gem, two 75 gp gems, four 50 gp gems.

Secret door on west wall: door is 6’ wide by 8’ tall push on left to open. Leads to level 3 via a 20’ wide by 60’ long corridor. Spiral stairs leads downwards from there.

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Room 5) 60’ × 40’ × 30’ ( 72,000 cubic feet )

The grey rectangle marks off an area only seen by the DM, refer to room

7 Large castle wall divides this area into 2 rooms.

Generate random numbers for all of the party using an even numbered die. ( 1d4 or 1d6 or 1d8 or 1d10 or 1d12 or 1d20) Any character that gets an even number result, one of the ballistas in room 7 will fire when that character goes into the grey marked area when the characters have been in the room for 5 minutes.

The moat is 10 feet deep and it swirls like something invisible is in it, e.b. large and snake-like.

No opening in the wall nor at the ends of the wall. Swimming the moat will work, except there are no handholds on the wall side of the moat.

The merloned wall allows rope and grapnel to be used, or a character could use any of the spells that enable flying, etc. No arrow loops in the merlons.

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Room 6) 6’ × 6’ 10’ secret room in room 7 ( 360 cubic feet )

small chest: locked

Poison trap lock: SR means no affect. Miss SR character takes 5 hp damage and is in pain
until Cure Light Wounds or Cure Poison is cast on the character. A thief would be -20 percent
to open locks until this curing is done.

box has three 250 gp gems, and 50 pp Dwarf Home coins. ( worth 1.5 times face value)

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Room 7) 40’ × 40’ × 20’ ( 32,000 cubic feet ) ballista room

The 5 ballistae are mounted so as to fire between the merlons on the wall
separating room 5 from room 7. Mostly they hit in the part of room 5 where the grey area
is marked on the map. They do not reload. Any character in the grey area is at AC 10.
The weapons are of metal and wood construction. Only way to remove them is to break them up.

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Top of the stairs:
From level 2, room 4, a 20’ wide by 60’ long corridor leads to a spiral
stone stair that goes downward. The stairs are 10’ in diameter and go
down 150’. The walking area on the stone spiral stairs is 5’ wide. The
total depth at the bottom of the spiral stair is 412.75 feet.

At 100’ down, the characters see carvings on the walls. The carvings are
of warriors in feathered headresses and look similar to Mayan and Aztec
styles. A plaster-stone combination blocks the stairs at 120’ down. There
are words carved and painted on it. If Read Languages is cast: Tomb of
Tonichto. Warrior King of Thaclara.’ The plaster wall is thin and can be
broken with Knock spells or maces. Behind it they will find a row of
inlaid stone blocks with no mortar holding them in place. They can be
removed with 2 hours of work. Hitting them with blunt weapons will cause
an echo to come up from below that sounds like that of a hammer on an
anvil. ( tap-tom-tap-tap)

Behind the stone wall is a passage that is richly painted and carved with
jungle scenes. Warriors are fighting. Spell casters are attacking each
other and warriors. Jaguars on leashes are being used to attack wounded
warriors. The characters soon realize there are two groups involved.
Those with blue feathered headresses and those with green feathers.

As the characters go downward, the spiral staircase passage is 5 feet
wide, they hear faint ‘jungle sounds’, mostly birds. The walls and
air gets damper and damper as they go further downward.

Now they see fighters and spell casters with orange feathers attacking
both the green and blue feathered groups.

Level 2: converting all items found to gold gives: 2,950.32 gp equivalent

Map is 50’ × 50’. Grid is 10’ squares. Path is 3’ wide’.

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At the bottom of the staircase, the characters find themselves on the edge of a large area of jungle. Trees, brush, birds, small lizards, and insects abound. The ceiling is approximately 100’ up. There is a dim greenish-yellow glow reminiscent of sunlight shinning through jungle growth, but it seems ‘wrong’ somehow. Then they realize the ‘sunlight’ is coming from everywhere, uniformly, even near the staircase. It cannot be actual sunlight shinning on these trees.

The only walls the characters see are at the spiral stairs. The rest of the area is jungle. If they ‘check for depth’ they will find they are about 413’ down.

Note: the passageways in the jungle growth move after the characters leave the clearing near the stairs. The amount of frustration of finding the same ‘rooms’ over and over is up to you.

The pedestals the statues are on are 3’ high.