The Empusa's Bathhouse
Steam, and under it the smell of hot stone and crushed mint. A proper bathhouse: a hot pool sunk in the floor, a cold plunge beside it, benches of veined marble, and a rack of folded linen still warm from wherever they warm it.
Three young women in undyed linen stop what they are doing and stand up. The fourth, older and taller, is already in the hot pool with her arms along the lip, and she says, without any particular interest: "You're filthy. Sit down, and someone will see to your feet."
DM summary. Genuine hospitality, offered by things that eat people, bound by a contract older than either party. Behave as a guest and the bathhouse is the safest room in the maze. Break guest-right — draw, steal, refuse rudely, or lie about who you are — and four empusae with a grievance will kill the party.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: The State Rooms — page 44, 55 × 75 ft (one half of The Villa)
The red-tiled state rooms are the bathhouse: draw the 20 × 15 ft hot pool in the great chamber and the 10-ft cold plunge in the small one, mark the lamp line at knee height, and dot a lifted floor tile for the hypocaust crawl.
- Dimensions. 60 ft × 40 ft, ceiling 20 ft with a vaulted roof and a steam slot at the crown. The hot pool is 20 ft × 15 ft and four feet deep; the cold plunge is 10 ft square and eight feet deep, with steps.
- Light. Bright and low: lamps at knee height all round the walls, which is flattering and means every face in the room is lit from below.
- The water. The hot pool is hot — a creature that fights in it has disadvantage on attack rolls and any creature that starts its turn submerged in it takes 1d6 fire damage. The cold plunge is deep enough to drown in armour and connects to the drain.
- The hypocaust. Under the whole floor: a 3-ft crawlspace of brick pillars and hot air, reached by a lifted floor-tile in the furnace corner. A creature crawling it takes 1d6 fire damage per round and is out of sight of everything above.
- The strigil niche. A shelf of guests' possessions — bronze scrapers, oil flasks, hairpins, a comb, four rings, a legionary's dog-tag in Linear A. What is left of previous guests, kept tidily, because the court does not steal.
- The linen rack and the benches are cover. The marble is heavy enough to stop an arrow and slick enough to fall on: Acrobatics DC 12 to run on wet marble, or prone.
- The drain. A grated channel from the cold plunge running out under the east wall, big enough for a person, and the grate lifts.
Bypass Options
The intended path, and it takes about ten minutes of table time and no violence. Three things are offered in order. Each is a real decision, and the safe answer to all three is accept graciously, or refuse gracefully.
| Offer | The catch | Reading it |
|---|---|---|
| The bath itself | None. It is a bath. Refusing is fine if done politely; refusing with a hand on a sword hilt is a breach | Insight DC 14 confirms she is not lying, which is the most unsettling result the party will get all session |
| Wine, in a shared cup | The cup is shared, and the attendant drinks first. Also none | Insight DC 14: no poison, no charm, and she is amused that you looked |
| "Tell me a name I don't know" | This one is real. She collects names — of people, gods, ships, streets. Give her one honestly and the debt is paid | Insight DC 16: what she does with a name is not explained and she will not explain it. Giving your own true name is not required and she will not press for it |
- Success on all three: the party bathes, is fed, is given clean linen, and leaves with the mistress's protection — see Loot, and see the rider on exit B.
- A graceless refusal (Charisma check DC 13 to refuse without offence) is one breach, not a fight. Say "she is very still for a moment" and let the party hear it.
- Attacking during the offers ends the bypass and starts the encounter with the party undressed and unarmed, which they will not enjoy and which is entirely fair.
For a party that wants nothing to do with any of this. The furnace corner tile lifts (Athletics DC 13, quietly on a Sleight of Hand DC 14) and the crawlspace runs the length of the building to the drain and out.
- Success: the party crosses under the floor in three rounds — 1d6 fire damage per round, no save — and comes out at the drain grate beyond the east wall. Nobody in the bathhouse ever knows.
- Failure on the tile: an attendant hears the scrape and comes to see. Not a breach — she assumes a guest is lost — and she will show them to the actual door, which they then have to refuse.
- Cost: three rounds of fire damage, and the party misses the loot condition and this room's clue.
Guest-right covers leaving. The mistress considers an early departure poor manners and binding. A party that says so plainly may withdraw through any exit, and nothing follows them.
- The price of an early exit: one gift, given by hand — an item of real value off a character's sheet, not coin. She names nothing; the party chooses, and she will refuse anything worthless with a look. Persuasion DC 16 waives it.
- Refusing to leave a gift and leaving anyway: one breach. She lets them go. The maze is long and the Lamia Court has other rooms in it, and you should say exactly that, in her voice, as the door closes.
- This is the escape hatch and it is always open. The party can leave the way they came, at any point in the negotiation, at the cost of one object.
Encounter
Only if guest-right breaks. Four of them, in their own house, with the water on their side.
| Count | Creature | XP each |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Empusa Bath-Mistress | 8,400 |
| 3 | Empusa Attendant | 1,800 |
Base 13,800 XP; ×2 for four bodies = 27,600 adjusted, against the APL 9 Deadly budget of 14,400. Nearly double. This is not a fight the room expects the party to have and it is not a fight they should expect to survive.
Why they are not attacking. The Lamia Court keeps guest-right, and it keeps it for the reason old households keep it: because the contract works both ways and because they are proud of it. A guest who behaves is not food. The mistress is in the water when the party arrives, unarmed, uninterested, and — this is the important part — she genuinely means the offer. The bath is real. The linen is warm. There is no poison in the wine.
If the party fights anyway. Say it plainly: this can kill the party, and that is the honest cost of poking it. The attendants fight from the water and drag people into it; the mistress does not enter melee until someone is already grappled and then she does not stop. The exits are 40 ft away across wet marble. Four PCs down in three rounds is the likely shape of it, and the party will have started it.
What breaks guest-right, stated so you can rule it instantly:
- Drawing a weapon, or casting anything with a visible effect, inside the room.
- Taking anything from the strigil niche without asking.
- Refusing a course rudely — see the three offers below.
- Being caught in a lie about who you are. Not a lie about your business; they do not care about your business. A lie about your name or your house.
One breach is an incident: the attendants stand, the mistress asks for an apology, and a Persuasion DC 15 or the immediate return of what was taken settles it. Two breaches is initiative.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
The dog-tag in the strigil niche is Knossian military bronze and reading it (no check) gives a name, a regiment, and a date. Asking the mistress about it politely gets a straight answer: he stayed three days, he was good company, and he left through the east drain because he did not trust the corridor. She is not lying about that either.
Insight against an empusa is worth calling out: they do not deceive guests. Every Insight check in this room comes back true, which is the most disorienting thing a suspicious party can be told, three times running.
Exits
One roll on the loot table, earned by leaving as guests in good standing: the mistress tells the party to take something from the strigil niche on their way out, and means it. Choose or roll — the niche holds whatever the table says it holds.
Taking a second thing from the niche is theft and is a breach, and everyone at the table will feel the temperature change when you say so.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | The mistress is absent — an attendant runs the house — and there are two attendants total. All DCs −2, and only two offers are made |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | Four attendants, and the mistress asks a fourth offer: she wants a story about something the party has done that they are ashamed of, and an honest one. DCs +1 |
| 15 | Two Bath-Mistresses — sisters, and they disagree with each other about the party in front of the party — plus four attendants. DCs +3, and one breach is enough to start the fight |
- Pacing: twenty minutes, all of it talking, and it is worth every one. This is the batch's roleplay set-piece. Behind schedule? Run one offer instead of three (the name), give the linen, and let them go. Seven minutes.
- Play the hospitality straight. No hidden poison, no charm, no trick under the trick. The horror is that they are exactly as gracious as they appear and they will still eat someone who is rude. If you undercut that with a secret betrayal, the room becomes a generic ambush and the deck loses its best parley.
- Let the players be paranoid and be wrong. Every Insight check comes back clean. Roll them anyway, in the open, and let the table sit with it.
- If one player insists on starting a fight, give the rest of the table one round of warning in the fiction: the attendants stand up, the water stops moving, and the mistress puts her cup down. That round is the party's chance to restrain their friend and it is a great scene.
- Table safety. Bathing, undress, and predatory hospitality all together. Say at the top that nobody has to describe their character undressing, and run the bath as a bath. If the seduction register is unwelcome at your table, the empusae are hosts rather than flirts — the contract carries the whole scene without it.
- Clue drip. Two objects: the soldier's dog-tag in the niche, which names a regiment posted to the great gate and a date nine years ago (X08), and the drain itself, which runs somewhere the mistress describes as "down to the water" with a shrug (X11).
- Callback. The Lamia Court (W10) always offers a deal before it shows a tooth, and always keeps its side. A party that met W10 earlier and traded honestly should be recognised here by name — the court talks to itself.
Creature Cards
Both belong to the Lamia Court (W10) and both recur, so the numbers live in the bestiary. The Bath-Mistress is this room's host, and R017 and F17 field her again when scaled up. The contract, the three offers, and the breach rules are this room's.
Shared across rooms, so the full cards live in the bestiary: Empusa Bath-Mistress, Empusa Attendant. Every mention above opens the numbers here on this page.