Gallery of Unfinished Wings
Four racks stand down the middle of this long room, and on each rack is a wing. Not a bird's — a made thing, ash-wood ribs and bronze wire and a skin of grey feathers laid in courses like roof tiles, some of them finished, most of them bare frame. They are enormous. They were built for a person.
The air moves through here steadily, coming from somewhere above and going somewhere else, and it smells of the outside.
DM summary. Daedalus's rejected drafts, on racks, with his notes still pinned to them — the single strongest early clue for X17, and the front door to the sealed shop where X20's bronze bird is sitting.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: The Guildhall Floor — page 35, 55 × 75 ft (one half of The Hall and the Sanctum)
The guildhall floor is the wing-workshop: the long hall is the workroom, the printed benches are Daedalus's bench line. Draw the four wing-racks along the south side and mark the three slot-vents high on the north wall.
- Dimensions. 60 ft × 25 ft, ceiling 16 ft. A long workroom with a raised work-step down one side and a bench under the window-slots.
- Light. Dim daylight. Three slot-vents high in the north wall admit grey light and a real, steady draft. This is the first daylight the party has seen since the Beginning, and you should say so.
- The four racks. Wing-frames, each about 14 ft from shoulder to tip. Racks one and three are sound — the ash is good, the wire is tight, the joints are pegged. Two and four are rejects: one has a snapped spar, one was built with the feather-courses running the wrong way and it will not bite air. Anyone who has ever built anything can tell which is which on a look.
- The bench. Wax-stained, with a beeswax pot gone hard, three feather-combs, a pin-vice, and a bronze rule marked in cubits. There is no wax left worth using. There are about two hundred feathers in a crate and a pair of wings needs three thousand.
- The vent tally. Scratched into the plaster above the bench, not written on anything portable: three columns of numbers in cubits, one column circled, and a rough plan of shafts beside them.
- The niches. Two Clockwork Sentinels stand in wall niches at either end, arms out, unpowered, being used as tool racks — somebody hung a bow-drill on one of them. They are Daedalan Automata (W03) and they are asleep in the way a clock is asleep when nobody has wound it.
- The bricked door. South wall, a doorway filled with newer brick and mortar, the mortar keyed with a thumbprint. There is a workshop behind it. The bricks are the only thing in this room that was done in a hurry.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
Nothing here is trapped. Four things here are readable, and reading them is the whole point of the room.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| The vent tally | Investigation DC 14. Three columns are shaft heights in cubits; the circled column is the shaft that draws hardest at dawn. This is the X17 requirement and it is not portable — someone must copy it or remember it |
| The note pinned to rack one | Free to anyone who looks at the racks. Four lines in a cramped hand, and the last line is an instruction: do not go above the throat — the stone is warm there and warm wax is not wax |
| Knowing why that matters | History DC 12 from anyone who has heard the story, or free for a character who has ever worked wax. Wax softens where the sun heats the shaft's neck. Nobody has to fall for this to be true |
| The sound rack, assessed | Investigation DC 12 or any tool proficiency: racks one and three will fly, two and four will not. A frame weighs 30 lb and is awkward rather than heavy |
| The bricked door | Athletics DC 14 with a crowbar or a spear butt, or 25 damage to the brick (AC 12). It is loud, it takes four rounds, and it is not subtle |
| Waking a Sentinel | Nothing the party does at the racks wakes them. Breaking the brick does — one Sentinel's governor ticks over on the fourth round of work |
When a Sentinel wakes. It steps down, looks at the mess, and begins tidying. It is a caretaker on a hundred-year-old work order: it re-shelves what has been moved, re-hangs the tools, and re-racks any wing-frame it can reach. It does not attack. It will physically take a frame out of a character's hands, once, politely, at a Strength contest against +7. It attacks only if struck, and if struck it is a CR 5 construct in a room full of things the party wants intact. Say "it is tidying" out loud. Let the table work out that the enemy here is bureaucracy.
Exits
None, and be firm about this. Everything of value in this room belongs to a Resolution: the sound wing-frames and the vent tally are X17's, the shop behind the brick is X20's, and none of it goes on the d100 table or into a pocket as treasure. A party that takes a frame has taken equipment for their escape, which is better than loot and should be described as heavier.
The bronze rule, the pin-vice, and the feather-combs are worth about six drachmae together and are not worth a roll.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | Both sound frames are finished and skinned; the note is pinned where nobody can miss it. DCs −2. The Sentinels are missing their governors entirely and will not wake |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | One sound frame. The tally has been partly scraped off and reading it is Investigation DC 15 plus History DC 14 to reconstruct the missing column. DCs +1. Both Sentinels wake on the brick, and one of them re-bricks the door behind the party |
| 15 | No sound frames — all four are drafts and the good pair left with somebody. The tally is intact and it is the only prize. DCs +3, and a Bronze Warden, Atelier-Pattern is standing in the sealed shop, mid-sentence, having been waiting a hundred years to finish an argument |
- Pacing: 10–12 minutes, and it is nearly all talking. No dice are required to enjoy this room. The racks, the note, and the draft do the work.
- If you are behind schedule, cut the bricked door entirely — describe it, don't let them open it — and run the room as read-aloud plus the note plus the tally. Five minutes, and the party leaves with the most important piece of information in the deck.
- Lead with the draft, not the wings. The wings are the answer; the moving air is the question. Have someone's torch lean before anyone looks at a rack.
- Do not foreshadow a fall. Every player at the table knows the Icarus story and will assume the wings are a trap. They are not. The note says how high is too high, the party is told, and the maze is being generous for once. If you want tension, put it in the weight of the frame and the two hundred feathers in the crate against the three thousand a pair needs.
- Clue drip. This is the deck's strongest Proof-tier hook for X17 — a wing-frame clamped to a bench, one wing skinned and one bare. The second hook is the thumbprint in the mortar of the bricked door: someone sealed a workshop from this side and their hand was smaller than a mason's (X20, and X05 if your table has been told a child is down here).
- Callback. If your table has already met Daedalan Automata as a threat, the two Sentinels being used as coat-racks should land as a joke and then as something sadder. Let them notice the bow-drill hanging off a war-machine's arm.