Archaist

by Ole Martin Kristiansen

On a hill overlooking the village Archaist lies a dark and forbidding keep. Aphisto Nefer, accomplished necromancer, has operated a laboratory here for several years, creating horrific monsters, some roaming the countryside, others guarding the Keep itself. Nefer has created undead creatures of all races, crafting many formidable creatures.

Recently, the Alfar have taken an interest in Nefer and his experiments. They have taken control of Nefer, turning him into a Liche (an undead necromancer of tremendous power) controlled by an Alfar necromancer.

Adventurers of all races are now coming to Archaist, which has become a battleground where the living and the dead clash, where mortal enemies join forces against fiends unchecked by any grave...

Overview of Archaist
Archaist is located in the Kingdom of Mercia. It is only a small village, not necessarily too far from Sanguine. If possible, it is enshrouded in a dense, perpetual mist, for eerie effect. The trees are gnarled and leafless, the grass brown and the water murky

Archaist itself holds five points of interest:

1: The village of Archaist; a small and mostly abandoned village where the only viable trade is supplying the local monastery and visiting adventurers.

2: The Monastery of Undying Hope, where a small number of clerics and monks maintain a front against the undead forces, protecting the nearby village by virtue of spell, sword and gold.

3: The Derelict Cemetery, an eerie place inhabited by ghouls, ghosts and skeletons.

4: The Mine, also called «Rotting Wound Mine», where undead dwarves creatures toil.

5: Archaist Keep, a sinister keep visible from the village. The Keep holds dark secrets, sinister plots, a number of Alfar, even more undead creatures large and small, and most notably ? the formidable Aphisto Nefer.

All five areas hold clues and items that will aid adventurers destroy Aphisto Nefer, but some areas are considerably more accessible to unexperienced players or weak characters than others. The five areas will be detailed further below.
Geographically, the layout is simple: the village lies at the base of a hill, surrounded by abandoned fields and some patches of forrest. The monastery is immediately adjacent to the village. A dirt road leads up the hill towards the Keep. A few hundred paces up the road lies the cemetery, the easiest area to explore. About halfway up the hill there is a fork in the road, one path leading to the nearby Mine. The other path leads to the Keep itself, which sits atop the hill.

The Core Mechanic
The Liche Aphisto Nefer is a «Switch». When his body is destroyed, his powerful soul goes to rest in a crypt beneath the Keep. There, it can be ressurrected by any Necromancer, starting the reign of undead terror again.
While Nefer is active, the undead of the region gain significant benefits, such as improved aggression, intelligence, power and abilities. Also, some specific monsters are only spawned while Nefer is active.

The point is that «good» charcters will have a blast fighting undead and Nefer, while evil characters, predominantly Alfar, aid and control Nefer and his creatures, making the «dungeon» a place for both PvP and PvE combat and strategy.

Nefer Benefits
When Aphisto Nefer is inactive, the undead of the region respawn at a fairly slow rate in the designated areas, and act like undead usually do: moderately aggressive, pretty stupid and mostly pushovers, combat-wise. However, when Nefer is active, the following effects take place:

Almost all undead creatures act as allied to all Alfar characters.
All undead spawns are «upgraded», that is, a spawn producing «skeletons» will spawn «Skeleton +1» (or whatever) when Nefer is active, etc.
Undead are spawned and respawned at double pace, meaning there are a lot more of them.
Special undead creatures detailed below are spawned in their designated areas.
There is a substantial bonus to the casting of all necromantic magic in the area.
The undead dwarves in Rotting Wound Mine actually mine gold, other minerals and gems, which they deposit it collection boxes found throughout the mines. When Never is inactive, they simply wander about, being extremely hostile to all living creatures including Alfar Characters.

In other words, when Nefer is active, Alfar characters have significant benefits.

Archaist Village
The fields and forests surrounding Archaist are not very hospitable; there is little game here, and even the trees seem hostile. The land itself appears to be dying, and bands of undead roam about. Also, skeletal wolves, dogs and other undead predators might inhabit the forests.

Archaist village itself is falling into disrepair. Most inhabitants have fled or turned into subjects of the keep. There are about 10 buildings still standing, the majority of them empty. However, it is possible to purchase a few useful items and services, most notably at the following locations:

The Hanged Man Inn
Basic accomodation (spawn/bind point?), food, rumors and missions are available here at inflated prices. The inn is operated by a wildly superstitious human, John Jadesea, and his half-wit daughter Tessa. Jadesea will give out the following simple missions:

1. Grave Sanctum: Tessas mother Mertha is buried at the cemetery. If a certain scroll is read over her grave at midnight, it will prevent the necromancer from claiming her bones. Actually, the spell is bogus, sold to John by a charlatan, and Merthas bones are long gone. John will pay a decent sum to any adventurer able to complete the mission, he is to afraid to go to the cemetery. at night himself.

2. Superstitious Mind: John is pretty superstitous, and will pay for items he believe will protect him from the undead. What he wants, is generated from a random list including: Owl Feathers, Holy Water, Garlic Garlands, Holy Symbols of all religions, Human Skulls and various spell reagents.

3. Blessed Amulet: This mission is actually a clue ? the monks at the monastery craft magical amulets that actually give some bonuses when fighting the undead. John needs at least two, one for himself and one for Tessa.

4. Bronze Amulet of Passage: John thinks this is an improved version of the Blessed Amulet mentioned above, but he's wrong: it is in fact a key needed to gain access to the Keep Proper. It can be acquired by looting NPC Alfar found in the Cemetery crypt and the Mine.

Additionally, John will offer good payment for items needed for the daily operation of the Inn, including firewood, meat, vegetables, beer, wine and other items.

Pakrat's Pawnshop
The gnome trader Pakrat Gilliver always fusses about the need to leave the village, but never actually seems to get going. There is just too much to pack, it seems. So, he nervously hangs about, selling most basic items and accepting all items anybody will want to pawn.
The smith has packed up and left long ago, but a fully stocked smithy remains. Pakrat will lease it out to any adventurer willing to pay his modest fee. He has employed a human mercenary, Tirsan Sellsword, to guard himself, his shop and the neighboring smithy. Tirsan is not very talkative, and will refer all questions to Pakrat, who in turn will refer most inquiries to the Inn or the Monastery.

Sumit's Magic Emporium
Sumit Ternclaw is a novice magician and closet necromancer, come to Archaist to learn dark arts from Aphisto Nefer. He has previously traded bones and reagents to the keep in exchange for knowledge and gold. With Nefers death, business has of course dwindled, and now Sumit is biding his time, contemplating what to do. Meanwhile, he sells spell reagents and other useful items for magic-using characters.
Characters breaking into Sumit's secret laboratory will encounter a small band of undead soldiers of Sumit's own design, as well as some correspondence between Nefer and Sumit, some books on necromancy and the un-animated skeletons of some weird animals like dinosaurs, lions, pterodactyls, lizardmen etc. In Sumit's basement there is a tunnel leading to the cemetery. crypt .

The Monastery
Five monks and clerics live in the small monastery, which includes a library, a temple to Morgaine and simple living quarters. The Monks maintain wards that protect the village and the monastery.
The monks and clerics are grateful for any help they get with fighting the undead, and sell Blessed Amulets that give human wearers some bonuses when fighting undead. The monks will also pay god prices for gold, silver and gems, ingredients needed to make the amulets. These ingredients can of course be found in the mine. Other missions given out here, include destroying Aphisto Nefer, destroying the resurrected remains of Jonotain Straightarrow, acquiring a copy of the «Summon Lieche» scroll and investigating the mine. The library also contain some rare books on necromancy and clues to what is going on at the keep. These titles include:

A Brief History of Archaist
Among other things, the secret passage leading from the mine to the keep is mentioned here, as well as some details about Aphisto Nefer.

A Journey Through Darkness
A recounting of the Witch Hunter Jonotain Straightarrow's travels and work. Some other adventure areas are mentioned here, and the book ends with a report on Jonoton going to Archaist in search of a necromancer, never to be seen again.

Bringing Rest to the Dead
A description on how to use spells and other means to battle undead. Might contain actual spells. Written by Jonotain Straightarrow.

The Cemetery
Located a few hundred meters up the hill from the village. While most of the landscape around Archaist is rather bleak, the grass in the cemetery. is a lush green. The soil is rich here...
Several ghouls and some skeletons lurk in the cemetery., which also holds a mausoleum. This should be a good area for beginning characters.
Inside the crypt, a band of NPC are lurking about, gathering materials for making more skeletons and attempting to control the local undead. Their leader bears a Brass Amulet of Passage, which will open the keep gate.
There are two tunnels leading from different parts of the crypt, one leads to Sumit Ternclaw's basement, the other one to the Rotting Wound Mine further up the hill.
In the crypt, there are also some wraiths and other etheral undead. They are now out of their graves searching for their recently animated bones, and they are not happy. Their toombs may hold some nice loot, such as ancient weapons and coins; as the previous looters came for bones, not gold.

All in all, the cemetery. and the crypts is a medium-sized area. The above-ground cemetery. is about 100 by 100 meters, the below ground crypts about the same for three levels, holding 15 to 20 rooms. Most of the NPC Alfar hang out in the bottom level, where they have gathered a fair amount of reanimated skeletons and zombies around them, including several undead soldiers and two undead commanders. Defeating the Alfar in the lower level should be a reasonably tough challenge. There are also two Alfar scouts on the second level and one on the first, they should be pretty easy to handle. All the NPC Alfar here wear a Bronze Amulet of Passage each.

There are no books in the cemetery., but lots of epitaphs. Some might hold clues, but most are only there for athmosphere. Example:

Here lies
Emos Greentree
Taken by the great plague of 1234

Giofrey Archaist
Miner, Explorer and Adventurer
Founder of the village of Archaist
Born 1121, Died 1186

Etc. There are at least two hundred bodies (or more) buried at the small cemetery., but far from all of them have epitaphs. But it is important show that Aphisto Nefer has a good supply of skeletons to reanimate.

The Rotting Wound Mine
Even further up the hill, this mine is the reason why village of Archaist was founded in the first place. While out killing goblins of the Rotting Wound Tribe, who had taken up residence in this natural cave, the adventurer Giofrey Archaist stumbled across a decent deposit of gold, silver and coal. He started up a mining industry, and a prosperous village grew up around it. After 200 years Aphisto Nefer showed up, and miners starting fleeing Archaist for safer places to work. In the 20 years since Nefer came to town, Archaist has died a little each day, the mine went out of business 13 years ago.

However, Nefer started it up again a few years later, manned by undead workers. Nefer needs silver for his research and experiments, and scores of undead dwarves are mining it for him.

The mine layout is simple: there are five large chambers, all interconnected by tunnels and shafts. One of these tunnels lead to the cemetery., another to the Keep.

In each chamber there is a collection box. The undead miners deposit mined gold, silver and coal here. Anyone can take stuff from these boxes (although they might have to unlocked or picked?). Naturally, there are richer loot found in the boxes in the deeper chambers, in the first chambers mostly coal and a little silver ore is found. In the deeper chambers there is more silver, some gold and even some gems to be found.

The undead dwarves are KOS to all living things entering the mine. When Aphisto Nefer is ACTIVE, the undead dwarves are ALLIED to all Alfar characters.

Some NPC Alfar are also stationed here. When Nefer is inactive, they hide in the tunnels, when he is active, they look after the collection boxes. Each NPC Alfar wear a Bronze Amulet of Passage .

Archaist Keep
The Keep itself is simple. There is a small courtyard surrounded by a wall with four turrets and a gate. A Bronze Amulet of Passage is needed to open the gate, but it is possible to enter the courtyard through the tunnel leading from the Mine and to the basement of one of the wall towers.

The courtyard, keep walls, towers and gate area are teeming with undead creatures, KOS to all living things. In each tower turret, there is also an NPC Alfar. Each of these wear a Silver Amulet of Passage. Such an amulet must be worn to open the door to the keep itself.

In the courtyard, there is also a smithy, a barracks and a stable. Undead dwarves work in the smithy, making armor and weapons. Rows and rows of armored skeletons waiting to be animated are laid out in the barracks. In the stables, undead horsemen are spawned regularly to gather in the courtyard. More on these below.

Inside the Keep
The Keep is three stories tall, but the most interesting area is below ground, where dungeons spread for five levels down. All areas are reasonably well stocked with undead.

On the first level above ground, there is a mostly just a great hall. This is actually completely empty; there are no undead creatures here. Staircases lead up, and a locked door leads down. A Gold Amulet of Passage is needed to open it.

On the second level, there are abandoned sleeping quarters etc. A good amount of Undead Soldiers and Commanders hang about here.

On the third level, Aphisto Nefers old laboratory and his library is found.
The library should hold some interesting titles, especially on necromancy. Some chilling tales should be included here, as well as some religious books on chaos sects. Aphisto Nefers diary can be found in his study. Nefer was once a promising mage the the college of Magic in Sanguine. While his ability with magic was considerable, he had a special knack for necromancy. He could not resist dabbling in this dark and outlawed craft. When found out, he was forced to flee, templars and Witch Hunters on his trail.

After a long escape he came to Archaist, which then was controlled by chaos worshipers known as Clan Blacksoul. Nefer was accepted as a member, and gradually expanded his power base. Those who opposed him were soon killed and turned into undead slaves. Soon, the keep was quite literally operated by a skeleton crew, and Nefer had peace to immerse himself in his studies. Over the next twenty years, he became one of the most powerful necromancers ever.

This chilling tale is also recounted in the journal of Armstrong Qweensman, former commander of the keep. The book is uneasy reading; detailing Nefer's horrendous politics and intrigues while taking over the Keep. Qweensman is still at the keep, now an Undead Commander in the dungeons.

In the Laboratory, a sample of Nefers ingenuity awaits adventurers: a Bone Golem. It is controlled by an NPC Alfar, who is also guarded by a band of Undead Soldiers, two undead commanders and two NPC Alfar. Defeating the lot should be a worthy task. The Alfar all wear Gold Amulets of Passage, which will allow the wearer to open the gate to the Keep Dungeon.

The Keep Dungeons
The five levels of dungeons beneath the Keep is a descent into despair and darkness.

The first level is mostly abandoned; the kitchens and other staff function quarters is situated here.

The Second level is mostly storage; a wine cellar, pantries etc. Several Skeleton soldiers and Commanders keep watch here. Vintage wine from this area could actually be sold to John Jadesae at The Hanged Man Inn.

The Third level is comprised of prison cells and torture chambers. Several experiments were conducted here, and some cells hold experiments impossible to control, such as undead Mahirim Soldiers and Commanders. Unlock these cells at your own peril.

The Fourth Level is the show-down area. In a big, central area, the shadowy figure of Aphisto Nefer sits bound to a throne defended by a variety of undead creatures. There are rows of columns and sacrofagi giving cover and strategic opportunities to combatants. All of Nefers undead creatures except the undead horsemen are represented here. It should be very hard to destroy Nefers wraith-like form, which undoubtedly also will be protected by Alfar players.

In addition to a host of Undead Soldiers there are two bone golems here, ten undead dwarven warriors and four exceptional undead commanders; the remains of Armstrong Qweensman, Jonotain Straightarrow, Giofrey Archaist and Urkluk Bonegrinder, who once was an Ork hero. These commanders are eminently equipped.

The Fifth level is the staging area for the Alfar controlling Nefer. It is basically a round tomb, overlooked by a gallery suitable for archers, with a large sarcophagus in the center of the room. Nefer's spirit will return here when destroyed. It may then immediately be summoned again by reading a scroll with the spell «Summon Liech» over the tomb. This scroll is available in Kebra Nagast for a rather high price, as part of any Alfar Archaist-related mission. The spell is not really usable for anything else than resurrectng Aphisto Nefer. There should also be a well-protected entrance leading to the Alfar network of caves and tunnels from this area.

Special undead creatures

Skeletons and Zombies
The garden variety of undead horrors. Zombies still have some meat on their bones, as opposed to Skeletons.

Undead Soldiers
A faster, stronger and better equipped version of the above undead creatures. Well armored in Clan Blacksoul standard issue armor, with shields, swords and crossbows, they are a lot more deadly than normal undead creatures.

Undead Commanders
Just like undead soldiers, only better in every way. Full plate armor and preferably magical weapons. They are distinguished by a fine web of silver thread criss-crossing their bones; the source of their superior abilities. Combining enchanted silver thread with undead, reanimated bones was Nefer's idea, and is detailed in one of his books. The webs of silver threads make the Undead Commanders gleam slightly even in darkness, making them even eerie and frightening to behold.

Spectres and Wraiths
Etheral creatures, the spirits of long dead humans. They strive to defend their earthly remains. Spectres are almost transparent skeletal apparitions, wrapped in shrouds. Wraiths are pretty much the same, but are garbed in translucent, ancient armor, packing swords and shields. They can pass through anything, and rely on melee combat, which drain their targets of both health and energy. Note that their attacks pass straight through their opponents armor. Etheral undead usually stay close to their tombs.

Ghouls
Not unlike zombies, but more agile and creepy. Ghouls are «free agent» undead; they are not controlled by anyone. They eat human flesh to refill their stores of magical powers, which keeps them «alive». These filthy creatures also have poisonous claws and bites, and prefer not to wear a lot of clothes. Skinny, blotched and disgusting, they are the remains of criminals buried outside a sanctified cemetery., and reanimated by a combination of Nefers powers, which affect the whole area, and their own unquenchable thirst for revenge. In a way, they are powered by Nefer's magic, but they have actually reanimated themselves. Hunting in packs, they should not be underestimated.

Undead Horsemen
Like an undead commander, except badder and mounted on a horse. Skeletal mounts would be more cool, but normal horses will also do. The horsemen can be used to key the Archaist Keep area into a conciderably larger campaign.

Undead Dwarves
Squat and strong, Dwarves make good undead creatures. Often wearing helmets and other pieces of armor, usually equipped with hammers or other equipment that may double as tools and weapons. They have carved inlays of gold and silver in their bones, depictions of runes that bind the Dwarves souls to their bones. The runes on their skulls, arms and ribs are particularly visible.

Undead Mahirim Soldiers and Commanders
An experiment gone wrong. Aphisto Nefer has managed to kill a fairly large amount of Mahir warriors and reanimated them. But he could not control them. They are currently held in cells in the dungeons. They are unarmored and not equipped with any weapons, but that hardy matters... they are just as lethal using only their teeth and claws. Release these monsters at your own risk; they are fast, strong and lethal, and they are KOS to everything ? even other undead creatures (and Alfar, even when Nefer is active). Like Undead Commanders, the bones of the Undead Mahirim Commanders are spun with silver threads.

Bone Golem
The pinnacle of Nefers Achievements: a massive skeleton giant, built of the parts of several other creatures. The limbs of the Bone Golem are massive and thick, as several femurs and other bones has been banded together with thick strips of silver to form huge appendages looking like macabre jig-saw puzzles. The Golem's torso is similarly heavy-set, their skulls taken from ogres and bears. In short, the melee-relying Bone Golem is a terrifying, lumbering monster, immensely strong and very hard to kill. It moves almost like a bear walking on two legs. Bone Golems do not use weapons, but are quite efficient in crushing opponents with their arms or underfoot. Often, plates or pipes of metal, mostly silver, are added to the Bone Golem to make them even harder to destroy. Bone Golems have never been tested on a battlefield, but can be expected to be devastating. Standing more than three meters tall, moving with thunderous steps and the sound of bones grating on each other, A Bone Golem is truly a terrifying abomination.

Closing comments
The Archaist Region is not so much a straight-forward adventure area/dungeon as it is a battleground where interesting battles between different races ? predominantly humans and Alfar ? would take place. Missions could be given to members of all races, motivating them to go here, although Humans, Alfar and perhaps Mirdain characters would have the most reason to go here. It is designed to be a dynamic area where players are pitted against each other, with a deep and gothic backdrop.