Weird Wednesday (Forsaken Frontier): River of Contempt

Living combatants have had dire need to cross the River of Contempt for centuries, and some still remain. Almost universally their legacy has been to take the lives of those who’ve come after, preventing intrepid fools from seeking out salvation or victory in the Shining City. These bitter souls reach into the lungs of the living, drowning even the most skilled swimmers with arms of water.

FLOODED LUNGS     CR 12
XP 19,200
NE haunt (1 hex of water where a mass drowning occurred)
Caster Level 12th
Notice Perception DC 20 (to hear the sounds of panicked swimmers drowning)
hp 24; trigger proximity; reset 1 minute
Effect When a living creature enters the haunt’s area, the water becomes turbulent. Every creature in the haunts area becomes the subject of a mass suffocation spell (CL 12th, DC 23).
Destruction The flooded lungs haunt is permanently destroyed if the flow of water is stopped in its location until the riverbed is exposed.

flooded lungs haunt
The River of Contempt the last sunrise before the Festival of Night.

 

Near the sections of the River of Contempt come nearest to Salamangka, some small number of holy warriors who crossed the river in search of justice and mercy gave their spiritual purity to the water as they died. Even paladins and priests might succumb to the temptation to curse their enemies with their last breath, but the last gasp of the most devout was one for hope. The next Festival of Night, the waters over their sunken corpses changed to reflect their prayerful tears and flasks of holy water. While the current remains lethal and the miasma of undeath hangs over the waters like a frigid mist, travel above the bodies of the holy dead brings peril only to the forces of evil. Fortunately for the innocent spirits who forever swim over their mortal coils, most undead troops who dare to walk or swim through this section of the river don’t survive long enough to warn others about the hallowed haunt.

HOLY WATERS     CR 9
XP 6,400
NG persistent haunt (1 hex of the river flowing over sunken corpses)
Caster Level 9th
Notice Perception DC 20 (to hear the desperate prayers of drowning holy warriors)
hp 40; trigger proximity; reset 1 minute
Effect When this haunt is triggered, white light shines from the riverbed and illuminates the corpses of those who held on to faith until their very end. The water in the affected area temporarily becomes holy water, and affects any evil creature in the area as holy smite (CL 9th, DC 16).
Destruction The haunt is permanently destroyed when every corpse in its area is exhumed and given a burial according to the traditions the corpses each observed in life.

 

[The way a location gets its name means something. With multiple undead armies endlessly warring over an ancient city, the nearby River of Contempt begs for a bitter, murderous history. So compelling that today we offer you a pair of haunts that give the river a storied past, and a supporting role in the battle for Salamangka. There’s no denying—the river hates both the living and the dead. -SH]

FourHorsemen-logo-rough-01

[Submitted by Steve Helt!]

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