Sanctum of Quiet Hours
The corridor gives onto a round room with eight alcoves, and the noise stops. Not muffled — stopped, the way it stops when you go under water. A single lamp burns in the eighth alcove and has clearly been burning a long time.
Four of the alcoves hold small figures with their faces chiselled off. Three are empty. The eighth has the lamp, a stone basin of clear water, and a folded cloth that somebody laundered.
DM summary. Consecrated ground, still working, kept alight by nobody. A short rest is safe here and any ritual takes half its usual time — for exactly as long as the lamp burns, which is one hour, and the party has to decide what to spend that hour on.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: The Silo Warren — page 28, 55 × 75 ft (one half of The Grey Warrens)
The round silo chamber is the sanctum: notch its wall with the eight alcoves at 45-degree intervals (mark the basin in the eighth), and wipe or wall off the printed corridors except the two doorways.
- Dimensions. A circle 35 ft across, ceiling a shallow dome 18 ft at the crown, with eight alcoves cut into the wall at 45-degree intervals.
- Light. Dim, warm, from one oil lamp. The lamp holds one hour of oil at the level the party finds it and it does not gutter or smoke.
- The quiet. Sound does not carry into or out of this room. Nothing outside hears anything the party does here, and the party hears nothing of the maze — which is restful and is also why they will be surprised by whatever is in the corridor when they leave.
- The basin. Clean, cold, continually fed by a seep at the back of the eighth alcove. Drinkable. Enough to refill every waterskin in the party twice, and enough to wash a wound in.
- The four defaced figures. Small marble votives with their faces chiselled away — deliberately, carefully, one chisel, one hand, a long time ago. The robes and attributes are intact enough to identify: a smith, a huntress, a sea-thing, and one holding a spindle.
- The three empty alcoves. Dust-free. Something stood in each and was taken out, not smashed.
- The lamp bracket. Bronze, with a channel cut round it and a groove leading to a small reservoir. This is a lamp built to be refilled by someone who expected to be back.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
The consecration, and how to keep it. The room's peace is tied to the flame. While the lamp burns:
- A short rest taken here cannot be interrupted by anything the maze sends; the room is not findable by sound and the corridor outside is a dead-end approach anyone can watch.
- Any ritual casting takes half its usual time, and a ritual that ordinarily needs components consumed on a shrine may use the basin instead.
- Anyone who drinks from the basin ends one level of the poisoned condition and recovers as though they had eaten a proper meal.
When the lamp goes out, all three of those stop immediately. The room is then merely a safe-looking round room, which is not the same thing.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Recognise whose sanctum this is | Religion DC 12 — it is nobody's now; the defacing was thorough and the intent was to un-name it, not to desecrate it |
| Notice the lamp's hour | Perception DC 10, or free to anyone who looks at the oil level. Tell them the number: one hour |
| Refill the lamp | One flask of oil buys two more hours, no check. This is the price and it should be paid out of the sheet, visibly |
| Re-consecrate the sanctum | Religion DC 13 over ten minutes, by any character of any faith, using water from the basin. On a success the room stays consecrated for the rest of the session regardless of the lamp. On a failure the attempt may be repeated once, at DC 15, and a second failure ends it — the room keeps its current hour and no more |
| The spindle votive | Investigation DC 12 finds a red fibre wound in the marble spindle's groove, wound recently |
The rest cap still applies. This is not a long-rest room — the deck has exactly two of those and this is not one of them. One short rest here, and the session's usual cap of two short rests is unchanged.
Exits
None on the table. What is here is not treasure, it is supply, and it should be handed over without a roll: clean water without limit, two flasks of lamp oil in the priest's cell, a laundered cloth, and one hour of guaranteed peace.
Anyone who prises a votive out of an alcove to sell it can do so — they are marble and they are portable and they are worth a few drachma. They also take the consecration with them when they go, and the lamp goes out at the same moment. Say that only after the chisel comes out.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | The lamp holds two hours. Re-consecration DC 11, and the basin ends one level of exhaustion as well as poison |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | The lamp holds half an hour and the seep in the basin has slowed to a drip — enough to drink, not enough to fill. Re-consecration DC 14 |
| 15 | The lamp is already out when the party arrives and the sanctum is dormant: relighting it needs oil and a successful re-consecration at DC 16, and the room offers nothing at all until both are done. Every DC in the room +3 |
- Pacing: twelve minutes if they rest, three if they do not. The whole value of a sanctuary is that it is unhurried, so put your notes down and let the players talk to each other. Behind schedule? Give them the short rest, hand over the oil, name the spindle votive, and move on. Four minutes — but do not cut the rest itself; it is the only thing the room is for.
- The one-hour lamp is the design. It converts a safe room into a decision: short rest, or ritual, or re-consecrate for later, or push on and save the oil. Ask them out loud what they are spending the hour on, and then hold them to it.
- Do not put a catch in it. The deck has a fountain that lies and a bath that charges; this room is honest, and a party that has learned to distrust everything needs one room a session that is exactly what it looks like. If they spend ten minutes searching for the trap, let them find nothing, and enjoy it.
- If the party is above 75% resources, they will skip the rest. That is fine and it is information: per the attrition model, you owe them a harder room next.
- If they are below 35%, encourage the rest openly through the room's own fiction — the cloth is clean, the water is cold, the lamp will not go out for an hour.
- Clue drip. Two objects: the spindle votive with the red fibre wound into it, which is somebody's votive offering to a woman who is not a goddess (X10), and the four chiselled faces, which suit X06 — an oracle-power in the maze that trades passage for something, and the price somebody paid here was the names of their gods.
- Callback. If the party has already met a Sanctuary this session, the contrast is the point: the others give food or healing, and this one gives time. A ritual caster in the party should be told, plainly, that this is the best room in the deck for them.