TOO
The Halaster statue has an elemental gem (air) for
a heart. This gem can be obtained only by shattering
or disintegrating the statue. With a successful DC 12
Strength (Athletics) check, a character can use an action
to knock the statue off its high shelf, causing it to shatter
on the floor.13D. CAVE OF REST
The stone giants come here to rest when they're tired.
The cave is devoid of furnishings and ostentation.14. CAVE BEAR DEN
These caves smeU like an animal den-not surprising,
given that Qurrok keeps his cave bears here.14A. ADULT CAVE BEARS
Two adult cave bears (use the polar bear statistics) rest
here. These mates attack anyone they don't recognize,
defending their young in area 14b. Gnawed bones cover
the den's floor.14B. YOUNG CAVE BEARS
Two cave bear cubs (use the black bear statistics) sleep
and play here. Qurrok has hollowed out several large
rocks for the young bears to run through and climb on.15. Qu R ROK's DEN
The stone giants stopped sculpting these caves when
they encountered soft sandstone beneath the harder
stone. Qurrok has turned this area into a private den.15A. UNFINISHED CAVE
Natural columns of rock support the cave ceiling, the
walls of which depict unfinished carvings of lanky stone
giants hurling rocks. The cave is otherwise empty.15B. GYM
This cave's walls are bereft of carvings. Resting on the
floor at the north end of the cave are stone barbells and
stacks of circular stone plates with holes bored through
the middle of them. Qurrok (see area 16a) works out
here, using the barbells and boulders as weights.16. CENTRAL CAVERN
This 180-foot-diameter spherical cavern has a domed
ceiling and a bowl-shaped floor. Along its perimeter
are stone ledges (area 16a) that don't quite encircle the
chamber. Any creature knocked off a ledge goes tum-
bling down the inward-sloping rock walls to the bottom
of the cavern (area 16b), which is strewn with rocks,
bones, and the bodies of two dead umber hulks.
At the center of the cavern, floating 10 feet above a
smooth, 80-foot-tall mithral spindle that erupts from
the floor, is Maddgoth's castle. The stone castle is more
than 60 feet away from the ledges, putting it outside the
range of some creatures' darkvision. The stone giants
have never noticed it for this reason.
The castle looks small enough to fit in a 20-foot-cube,
and it floats at the center of an invisible 40-foot-radius
sphere of transmutation magic that shrinks all creatures
and objects in its area to one-twelfth their normal size.
A 6-foot-tall person becomes a 6-inch-tall person, for ex-LEVEL 7 I MADDGOTH"S CASTLEample. Characters who enter the sphere can tell some-
thing has happened when Maddgoth's castle suddenly
looms twelve times larger in their vision.
A shrunken creature or object reverts to its normal
size once it leaves the sphere, which is generated by the
mithral spindle. No saving throw is allowed to resist the
shrinking effect, and nothing short of divine interven-
tion can suppress the spindle's magic. The spindle is
impervious to damage, and it generates a magical repul-
sion field that prevents creatures from approaching any
closer to it than 5 fe.et.
When Halaster created the mithral spindle, he ex-
empted certain creatures and objects from its shrinking
effect. The spindle itself is unaffected, as is Maddgoth's
homunculus. Faerie dragons are also immune to the
shrinking effect, and there might be other creatures and
objects that are unaffected as well, based solely on the
Mad Mage's whims.16A. LEDGES
These ledges are 90 feet above the cavern floor and safe
to traverse.16B. CAVERN FLOOR
Qurrok. If no one has raised an alarm, Qurrok the
stone giant is searching the cavern floor for interest-
ing rocks and gem deposits.
Corpses. Amid the rocks on the cavern floor are the rot-
ting corpses of two umber hulks killed by Qurrok in
the western caves.
Qurrok's body is a temple, and he has honed and
shaped it to perfection. His extensive physical train-
ing gives him advantage on all Strength checks and
Strength saving throws.
Every time Qurrok loses his memory, he forgets about
his previous excursions to the bottom of this cavern.
He lowers himself to the floor, discovers the mithral
spindle, and tries to climb it to see what's at the top. Re-
buffed and discouraged by the repulsion field that sur-
rounds the spindle, he starts combing the cavern floor
for treasure.
When an alarm sounds in the caverns around this
area, Qurrok climbs up to the ledge closest to the distur-
bance. If doing that puts him anywhere near his pet cave
bears in area 14, he summons them to his side with a
booming, bear-like roar.
Qurrok likes physical challenges. He neither shies
away from combat nor backs down from a fight unless
his mother, Speleosa, commands him to.FALLING FROM MADDGOTH'S CASTLE
If a creature that is reduced to one-twelfth its normal size
falls from the castle, it will travel over 600 relative feet
before hitting the cavern floor due to the reducing effect
around the castle, which turns every foot of actual d istance
into 12 feet of relative distance. From its perspective, the
c reature would seem to fall several hundred feet before
suddenly growing twelve times bigger in the final 40 feet
before impact. Because the reducing effect c reates more
relative distance between the c reature and the cavern floor,
a fall from anywhere on the castle deals 20d6 bludgeoning
damage on impact.