Durance Vile
(see application ad thread)The royal executioner and his assistants, numbering no less than twenty, have escorted you and the others to the entrance of the dungeon. What crimes you were falsely accused of matters no more. The word of a king is the only truth in the land. And your sentence: “Death: at the leisure and behest of He Who's Name Shall Not Be Spoken.” Worse than death. For this dungeon was crafted in His honor, over the period of ten thousand days by the divine magic of one hundred high-priests of the King that Crawls and their legions of slave-workers. It was designed as a burgeoning maze of underground caverns and tunnels. Incalculable resources were poured into its creation. Incalculable lives were lost in its making.
No one knows how large the dungeon is, if it is all just beneath the surface or if it burrows deep down into the earth. Through the royal seer, with his crystal ball, only King Paksi II and a select few have seen down into the extent of the dungeon. Whispers carry, though, and knowledge of the dungeon was leaked out to the masses. It is said that the priests, with the aid of the archmages and their eldritch magics, infused the vast entirety of the dungeon with verboten enchantments. It is said that not only does the dungeon run thick as blood with wretched creatures, it breeds them from its very self. It is said that Torog's Dungeon is alive....
Use of the dungeon was declared forbidden upon completion. It's cavernous vault entrance that you all now stand in was sealed away, the key placed in a black box at the king's bedside. That was ten years ago....
Now, King Paksi II, his word be done, stripped the dungeon of its forbidden status and has seen to it that you will be its first inhabitants.
You all stand before the prolific Black Gates awaiting the king's final command. An obsidian monolith of Torog towers over you. King Paksi II, with his party of nobles, officials, and servants perched high on a ledge overlooking your group, raises his scepter ceremoniously and cuts down through the air with it. The executioner nods and turns to you all. “Who knows,” he comments off-hand. “If you're savvy, you could live a long time down there in the dungeon.” He smirks and pulls his executioner's black cowl-mask over his face. “Perhaps you'll even make it down to the Underdark and find your way out!” He laughs with all his might as he signals the guards. They shove you roughly through the gate, and the last thing you hear is the executioner's heartless laughter mixing with the great grating of the gates. And then the gates boom shut.
My name is Lom, and I will be your unforgiving Dungeon Master for this ride. Do buckle your safety belts.
