Publisher's blurb:
Pillars of stone lead up from the mountainside to form support pillars under a grand coliseum. Heavy stone pedestals mark the outskirts, with angelic statues standing upon them grasping chains or holding swords.
Many stone pillars hold up the mountainside over the crowded stands and platform that looks down upon the contestants. Fires rages along the insides of the combat grounds, smaller statues are engulfed in flames leaving burn marks across their surfaces while bloody marks have been left upon the stone from previous battles.
A large symbol has been carved into the stone floor, a mark of the hold that owns this place as well as a functional trap door that leads to the elevator used to get the combatants access to the arena.
Adventure Seed
After a heavy storm uncovers a pass to a lost city in the mountains, rumors start circulating the countryside, tales of treasure, gold and fame to be found within it’s halls drive you to seek out this ancient place.
You follow the directions given from some locals and after several days travel you arrive at your destination. You enter the halls dispatching small threats that have now made this place their home before finding yourself in a hexagonal room with a ceiling some hundreds of meters above you.
Upon entering however the door closes behind you and the floor starts to rise, transporting you higher into the gloom above. After moving up for some 20 seconds, light begins to peek through the darkness as if two sliding doors are opening above.
The platform continues rising until you’re bathed in sunlight and heat. You stand in an arena of stone, and chains, while flames beat down on you from all around. A crowd of hundreds of men and women cheer from the arenas stands. “May these be worthy!” a desperate man in fine garb calls down from the balcony above before you’re attacked by a group of men wearing minimal leather armor and covered in red tattoos from the other side of the arena.
What’s going on? This place was originally set up long ago as a prison for a great evil that dwelt below however it “vanished” after a massive landslide cut it off from the rest of civilization. The inhabitants had children and their children had children but overtime the prison began to break and the evil began to spread it’s tendrils. Fertility dropped and less children were born each generation and those who were born sometimes suffered horrible defects.
Today only one keeper is left, he stands on the balcony above you, a powerful old wizard focusing on the magic of illusion. After being alone for so long he found refuge only in the study of his peoples magical writings and so he has recreated them as illusions including all the peoples in the arena stands and the men you fight within the arena.
The wizard has also been the catalyst for all of this, after the storm opened the pass once again he sent out magical messages giving rumor to this city and treasures it may hold. He requires heroes with strength of mind to help defeat the evil that will soon be released within the failing prison before his frail body and mind fail him. Will you help him? Or has his grand deception turned you against him?