D20 SYSTEM✦ Normal

The Dissolving Summit: Mud, Gears, and the Slime That Thinks

# Beast# Wilderness# Magitech# Construct# Intrigue

The Granite Spires are dissolving. What was once an unshakable gnomish stronghold, powered by arcane irrigation and geothermal vents, is now a churning maelstrom of sentient mud and corrosive ooze. The Gnomish Sprinkler Caravan, their last bastion of order, is haywire, its sprinklers spraying solvent instead of water. You've been hired to stop the 'landslide'—but the mountain itself seems to be alive, and it's fighting back. The truth is buried under layers of muck: this isn't a natural disaster. It's a war between two desperate philosophies, and you're standing in the no-man's-land.

Chronicle Prelude

You arrive at the relatively stable, but tension-filled, 'Root-Town Depot' at the base of the Granite Spires. Here, gnomish engineers and desperate miners eye each other warily, the air thick with the smell of oil and damp earth. The depot is a chaotic hub of salvage operations and frantic repairs to the malfunctioning Sprinkler Caravan, a massive, tracked vehicle that is supposed to stabilize the slopes.

Environmental Traits

The crisis is two-fold: the physical dissolving of the mountain threatens to engulf the depot, and a metaphysical schism has emerged. The mountain's ancient, geomantic spirit (the 'Dirt Slopes') is being violently awakened by the gnomes' deep-drilling, and its 'dissolutions' are its immune response. The party must navigate the collapsing terrain, the malfunctioning gnomish tech, and the warring ideologies to find a resolution—or be consumed by the ooze.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Chief Surveyor Vexni Boltspark
A middle-aged gnome with grease-stained goggles perpetually pushed up on her forehead. Her leather coat is covered in measurement tools and patched with mismatched fabric. Her expression is one of perpetual exhaustion masked by forced efficiency.
Root-Speaker Mudtongue
A figure caked head-to-toe in dark, wet mud, with small ferns and mushrooms growing from their shoulders and hair. Their eyes are a startling, pale green, and they speak in a low, resonant voice that seems to vibrate the ground itself.
Operator Madge Cogsworth
A thin, wild-eyed gnome in a stained jumpsuit, huddled in a cramped control room filled with levers and pressure gauges. She flinches at loud noises and mutters calculations to herself.
Sludge Mephit Swarm
A writhing, hissing cloud of tiny, muddy elemental sprites. They swirl around pockets of thick ooze, their forms constantly dissolving and reforming. They leave patches of corrosive slime on whatever they touch.
Alchemist Loxley Sparkplug
A young gnome with soot in his hair and a manic grin. His apron is covered in chemical burns, and he gestures excitedly with a pipette as he talks. His ruined lab is a chaotic mix of shattered beakers and smoking concoctions.
Root Guardian
A towering, humanoid shape formed from gnarled, petrified wood and packed, dripping mud. Moss and glowing fungi cling to its joints. Where it walks, the ground becomes soft and unstable, and the air smells of wet earth and decay.
Spectral Surveyor
A translucent, flickering image of a gnome in a torn surveyor's coat. He points mutely at walls and intersections, his form occasionally dissolving into static. He carries a spectral clipboard.
Geothermal Core Guardian
A colossal, semi-translucent blob of luminous, pulsating mud. Within its mass, glimpses of gnomish machinery, melted gears, and crystalline growths can be seen. It moves with a slow, tidal inevitability, radiating intense heat and corrosive energy.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Lost Workshop: Heart of a Raging Core

The Reignited Forge: A Crisis of Iron and Will