The Cliff of Crypts
Merry Christmas!
Last post, I mentioned the eerie Cliff of Crypts and the Ossuary Coven, three undead hags who possess terrible magic power and know the secrets of crafting magic weapons from bone and sinew. It sounds like a good idea, so I whipped out some graph paper, pencils, and Paper Mate pens. Here’s the initial results:
As you can see, there are four levels within the cliff. Each level is the final unresting place of important members of the upper five social classes of the people who built the crypts. The most important social class occupies the uppermost level, and each subsequent lower level represents a lower social class. The priest and warrior levels are connected by means of a ladder, which represents that these two classes shared leadership and that mobility between the two classes was possible.
The lower three levels represent the traders, scribes, and merchants. The traders were distinct from the merchant class by virtue of the former voyaging to other lands in order to bring in wealth. Merchants did not travel. They represented mercantile interests by running shops, warehouses, et cetera. The scribes worked with all of the other classes to ensure accurate records of treaties, laws, accounts, and so on were maintained.
When the crypts were built, the valley had not yet been flooded. Some time ago, torrential rains created enormous mudslides that deforested sections of the valley’s highlands. The resulting logjam blocked the normal course of the valley’s river, creating a lake and flooding the merchant level of the crypts. During the rainy season, water levels in the lake rise sufficiently to flood the scribes’ level as well.
As you can see, I’ve penciled the priests’ level. I leaning toward adding ghoul tunnels in the space around the level. These tunnels could provide other connections to the lower levels as well as natural caves. After all, what’s a crypt complex without claustrophobic ghoul tunnels?
