The Drowned Procession
A temple nave, older than the maze that has grown around it, standing in black water. Two rows of columns march away from you into the dark; the water is shin-deep where you stand and you cannot see where it stops being shin-deep.
Down the left-hand aisle a funeral is walking. Six of them, in bronze and waterlogged linen, carrying a bier at shoulder height with something small on it wrapped in cloth, and they are singing — six voices from six flooded chests, the same nine notes over and over, in step, perfectly.
They have been walking this aisle for a very long time and they are not quite at the altar yet.
DM summary. A funeral that has not finished, in a nave that is shallow at the edges and deep in the middle. The procession will not stop for the party, and every tactic they have is about getting somebody into the deep water.
Terrain & Features
Battle map: The Pillared Sanctum — page 36, 55 × 75 ft (one half of The Hall and the Sanctum)
The pillared sanctum is the drowned procession: the printed columns are the two rows of six. Shade the three depths — shin-deep aisles, waist-deep nave, the black channel — and chalk the cornice ledge along both walls at 12 ft.
- Dimensions. 60 ft × 40 ft, ceiling 25 ft. The party enters at the west end.
- Light. None. The water throws the party's light back up at the ceiling and makes the far end look further than it is; the procession carries no lamp and does not need one.
- Three water depths, and they are the whole fight. The aisles (10 ft wide, both sides) are shin-deep — normal movement. The nave (20 ft wide, down the middle) is waist-deep — difficult terrain, disadvantage on Dexterity saves. The sanctuary well at the east end, 20 ft across in front of the altar, is 12 ft deep — swimming, and Drowned Hoplites move at full speed in it while a party in armour does not.
- The columns. Two rows of six, 3 ft thick, giving half cover along both aisles and blocking every long sight-line in the room.
- The cornice. A stone ledge 12 ft up runs the whole length of both walls, 2 ft wide, dry, with a 4-ft gap where a slab has fallen. Nothing in the water can reach it. The procession does not look up while the psalm continues.
- The bier. A cedar litter, water-swollen, roped at four corners to the shoulders of the four front bearers. On it: a body the size of a child, wrapped and bound and weighted with a bronze plate. Under the cloth at its foot are the offerings.
- The altar. East end, on the far side of the well, and the procession is trying to reach it. That is all any of them want.
Encounter
Six bearers who will not break step, and a siren in the well who wants somebody to come in to her.
| Count | Creature | XP each |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Drowned Hoplite | 700 |
| 1 | Siren of the Sunken Court | 1,800 |
Base 4,600 XP; ×2 for five bodies = 9,200 adjusted, just under the APL 9 Hard budget of 9,600. The last of the pressure is the water: this is a fight where the party's positioning is worth more than their damage, and a party that lets itself get walked into the nave will feel the difference.
Two of the six bearers are the bier's rear pair and are not statted separately — they are two more Drowned Hoplites if the fight starts in earnest, and the DM should add them only if the party is winning comfortably. Written as four so the budget is honest.
Round 1. The procession does not charge and does not break step. On the first round the bier keeps moving toward the altar and the two rearmost bearers peel off — set the litter's weight on the others' shoulders and turn, without hurrying, to intercept. The siren does not appear on round 1. She sings from the well, which the party will hear as a seventh voice joining the nine notes, and the target she picks is whoever is standing closest to waist-deep water.
Tactics. Every Drowned Hoplite here fights to drag: grapple, step backward into deeper water, and let the depth do the work. They are slow on the flags and fast in the well. The siren never leaves the water and never fights in melee; her whole contribution is moving one character 20 ft east per round, which is the distance between a bad position and a drowning one.
They will stop. If the bier reaches the altar, the psalm ends, the six set it down, and every one of them kneels and stops fighting — permanently. This takes five rounds from the party's arrival if nobody interferes. A party that simply lets the funeral happen has beaten this room and the DM should let that land without comment.
Bypass Options
Twelve feet up, dry, and out of reach of everything in the room.
- Getting up: Athletics DC 13 at the broken plinth by the west door, or any climb speed, or a 10-ft boost from a companion with no check.
- The gap: the fallen slab leaves a 4-ft gap halfway along. Acrobatics DC 12 to step it, or Athletics DC 14 to jump it in armour.
- Staying unnoticed: nothing at all, while the psalm continues. They do not look up. The only way to lose this bypass is to make a noise that stops the singing — dropping something into the water, shouting, or a spell with a verbal component: Dexterity (Stealth) DC 12 for anyone who wants to do something clever up there.
- One failure: the psalm stops on the wrong note. Every head in the nave turns up. The party has one round of grace on the ledge — the hoplites need to reach the plinth to climb — and the siren starts singing at whoever is nearest the gap.
- Cost: the cornice runs to exit C and to nothing else. The party leaves without the offerings and without ever having stood on the nave floor.
The four corner ropes are the only thing holding a weighted body above the water.
- The check: the bier passes within 5 ft of the north aisle at the third column. Cutting two ropes on the same side is one action and a Sleight of Hand DC 15 (or an attack against AC 12 for each rope, from cover, at the DM's preference).
- Success: the litter tips and the weighted body goes into the nave. All six bearers abandon everything and go in after it, and the siren goes with them because she cannot help herself. Four rounds in which the room contains no threat at all, which is enough to cross the nave, reach the altar, or leave by any exit.
- Failure: you have your hand on a dead child's funeral rope with six armed mourners a foot away. The psalm stops. Every bearer engages, and the DM should make it clear this is not a mechanical punishment but an entirely reasonable reaction.
- Cost, and it is worth naming at the table: the party has just dropped somebody's funeral in the water to save themselves four rounds. The procession will do this again for another two hundred years, and it will do it wetter.
- Withdrawing instead: the west door is behind them the whole time. Nothing in this room follows the party out, because leaving the nave means abandoning the bier. Cost: the time, the loot roll, and the clue.
Traps / Puzzles / Checks
Deep water. A character in the sanctuary well who is grappled by a Drowned Hoplite is being dragged under: at the end of each round submerged, they may hold their breath normally, but they cannot cast, cannot see, and take 1d6 bludgeoning as the hoplite works them against the well's steps. Escape DC 14, or a companion in the water may make the attempt for them at Athletics DC 14. Heavy armour means a Strength (Athletics) DC 12 just to keep a head above the surface each round.
The psalm. Nine notes, and anyone who counts them realises they are a sequence, not a song — the same nine notes as the nine paces between the columns. Performance DC 13 or Religion DC 12 to work out that the procession is keeping time by architecture. That is worth nothing tactically and everything for the room's texture, so give it away free to anyone who asks.
Exits
One roll on the loot table, from the offerings bundled under the cloth at the bier's foot: temple silver gone green, a votive plaque, coin from a mint nobody uses any more.
- After the procession reaches the altar and kneels: no check. They set the bier down and stop caring about anything. This is the clean way and it costs five rounds of patience.
- During: Sleight of Hand DC 15 to lift the bundle in passing. On a failure the psalm stops, and you have earned that.
- The bronze plate weighting the body is not loot. It is 30 lb of good bronze and it is also the only thing keeping a small wrapped shape on the litter. A party who takes it has made a decision about themselves.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | Three Drowned Hoplites, no siren; the well is 6 ft deep rather than 12. All DCs −2 |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | Six Drowned Hoplites, the siren, and a Scyllan Horror in the sanctuary well that never leaves it and has 15 ft of reach out of the water. DCs +1 |
| 15 | Eight Drowned Hoplites, two Sirens, a Scyllan Horror, and the nave floods: the water rises one depth band every third round until the aisles are waist-deep and the nave is swimming. DCs +3 |
- Pacing. Twenty minutes fought, eight if they take the cornice, twelve if they simply stand in the aisle and let a funeral finish. All three are wins and you should not steer.
- If you are behind schedule, the procession is already at the altar when the party arrives, and the room is four Drowned Hoplites kneeling with their backs turned and a siren in the well. Eight minutes, and the party chooses whether to disturb anything.
- The five-round clock is the room's best trick and it is invisible. Do not announce it. Just have the bier move, three columns from the altar, then two, then one. A table that notices and holds their fire has earned something the dice cannot give them.
- Track water depth on the mat with a marker, not in your head. This fight is unrunnable if the DM is guessing which square is waist-deep. Draw the three bands before the party walks in.
- Table safety. A child's funeral, a drowning mechanic, and a party who may decide to cut the ropes. If the table has steered away from either, the body on the bier is a grown soldier in full armour, which changes the weight and nothing else, and drowning can be resolved as "you black out and wake up coughing on the step" rather than played round by round.
- Clue drip. Two objects: the drain under the altar, which runs seaward and has salt in it (X16 or X11, Sign or Path tier — this nave is on the way to the water-level halls and X16 names it as such), and the votive plaque among the offerings, which is a dedication naming a family that also appears on the shrine in the deck's other temple rooms (X05 or X10, Trace).
- Warband callback. Deep Water Kin (W14) do exactly one thing: they take hold of you and they walk backwards. A party who has met them before should refuse to stand next to deep water, and this room should reward that refusal — the aisles are genuinely safe, and a disciplined party can win here without ever getting their knees wet.
Creature Cards
Both belong to Deep Water Kin (W14) and recur across the deck, so the numbers live in the bestiary. The psalm, the five-round clock, and the bier's ropes are this room's and stay here.
Shared across rooms, so the full cards live in the bestiary: Drowned Hoplite, Siren of the Sunken Court. Every mention above opens the numbers here on this page.