The Vineyard Sinkhole
The vine-row gave way like a trapdoor with no hinge. One moment there was warm red earth and a hillside going down to the sea, and then a sound like a jaw opening, and then thirty feet of falling through roots.
You are lying in a heap of vine and dry soil at the bottom of a shaft of daylight that is already smaller than it was. Someone's lantern is in four pieces. And the wall you fell past is not a wall of earth. It is dressed stone, fitted without mortar, and it goes down.
Premise. Nobody meant to be here. The party fell into the maze from a hillside above it, which means they have all their gear, no information, and no obligations — the purest "explore because you must" opening in the deck. Because nothing about the entry points at a particular ending, this is one of the three Beginnings where you roll the Resolution.
Starting State
- Full kit, plus the aftermath of a thirty-foot fall: each PC takes 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage, halved on a DC 13 Dexterity save. Do not skip this. It sets the register — the maze has already hurt them and nothing has attacked yet.
- The broken lantern. One light source is destroyed outright, player's choice whose. Light is a resource in this dungeon and this is the cheapest way to teach that.
- One item cracked. Each player rolls a DC 12 check for something fragile they carry (a potion, a mirror, a spell scroll). One failure across the party is plenty; if everyone succeeds, let them have it.
- Full spell slots. It is the middle of a working day.
Opening Scene
A rubble-floored chamber 40 ft × 40 ft, the collapsed roof heaped in the middle, a shaft of daylight coming down through the vine-roots twenty-five feet above. Three walls are dressed Knossian stone. The fourth is raw earth, which is what they fell through.
No creatures, no trap, no check the party can fail badly. This is a five-minute scene that answers one question — can we climb out? — with a firm and interesting no.
The climb. Athletics DC 15 gets a PC to within eight feet of the surface, where the shaft narrows into unpacked soil that will not hold. A second DC 15 fails automatically: the soil gives, the climber slides back, and another two feet of daylight closes. Let them try twice, describe the hole shrinking each time, and then let them hear the third collapse from below.
- Magical flight or a spider climb gets a PC to the top, where they find the vine-row caved in over an area forty feet across and the shaft sealed by their own weight the moment they stand on it. They can go for help. Help takes three days, and the rest of the party is thirty feet under a hillside. Every table works out the answer to this on their own.
- Do not punish the attempt. The party is meant to conclude that the way out is through, not up, and they should conclude it themselves.
Things to find, all quick.
| Feature | Check | What it gives |
|---|---|---|
| The dressed stone | History DC 12 | Knossian palace work, three hundred years old, and the mortarless fit means it was built to move |
| The roots | Nature DC 11 | These vines have been drinking from somewhere below for decades. There is water down there |
| The rubble | Investigation DC 13 | An older fall, cleared and re-piled. Something in here tidies |
| The air | Survival DC 14 | It moves. Steadily, from the low passage, and it smells of salt |
First Clue (Whisper tier)
Roll the Resolution (d20) after the first room, then deliver its Whisper line from that Resolution's clue table, dressed into this scene. Three that fit the sinkhole especially well:
- The air moving up from the low passage carries salt (X16, X11).
- Among the fallen roots is a single grey feather, too large for any bird on this hillside (X17, X20).
- Under the re-piled rubble, one stone is stacked deliberately on another, and a third leans against them: a marker, made by someone with hands and a plan (X14).
Exits
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | Fall damage 2d6 as written, but the Dexterity save is DC 11. Other DCs −2 |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | Fall damage 4d6, save DC 14. Other DCs +1 |
| 15 | Fall damage 6d6, save DC 15, and the collapse continues: at the end of round 2, anyone still under the shaft takes another 2d6 unless they move. DCs +3 |
A fall, a collapse, and being sealed underground. If burial or confined spaces are a problem at your table, the softer framing is a gentle slide down a soil ramp into an open chamber with the way back merely blocked rather than crushed shut. Keep the lantern break either way; it is the useful part.
- The fastest Beginning in the deck. Five to eight minutes, and the party is rolling d100 with full kit and no orders. Use it when you are short on table time, when a player is late, or when the group wants to get straight to the maze.
- The shrinking hole is the whole scene. Narrate it three times: the daylight is a hand's breadth smaller, then a foot, then gone. Nothing else in the room has to work hard after that.
- Full kit means you can be harsher later. This is the Beginning where a Hard second room is fair, because nothing was taken from them.
- Nobody is coming. Say it plainly once, when a player asks. The vineyard belongs to someone who will notice the collapse in a week and hire someone in a month.
- If a player insists on going for help by air, let them, and give the rest of the party a Sanctuary room's worth of grace while they decide — then have the flyer land back in the chamber, because the only opening they can get back through is the one they came out of.