Halls of Dancing Flutes
In local legend, the Halls are fairly old, with stories of people disappearing going back for hundreds of years, said to be taken by the Faeries. In actuality, the Halls are much older.
Description of the Halls
Halls of Dancing Flutes are huge, echoing, many-pillared chambers built of granite blocks, each being about twelve cubic-feet. The walls are smooth and unadorned, the pillars, however, are covered in intricate carvings of smiling people dancing with arms linked. If you look closely, you can see that the line of dancers is simply an unending chain, twining up and down each pillar. At the end of the Halls, there is a stone, standing about a foot high, and set with a numerity of holes, each large enough for a flute to rest in. Most of the holes are empty, but some still house plain, wooden flutes.
History of the Halls
In local legend, the Halls are fairly old, with stories of people disappearing going back for hundreds of years, said to be taken by the Faeries. In actuality, the Halls are much older.
A long while ago, though no one really knows quite how long, Queen Titania of the faeries became fascinated with dancing and music. Not a serious infatuation, mind you, just one of those fancies that those flighty creatures get every now and then. It probably wouldn't last more than a few hundred years.
Now, the queen herself was neither a good dancer, nor an accomplished musician, but she would sit for hours on end, watching and listening. However, she just wasn't satisfied, she wanted perfection.
But perfection is very hard, if not impossible, to come by. So, day-in, day-out, she would watch her royal dancers dance and hear her royal musicians play. Or she would sit in her chambers and complain to anyone who would listen, and some who would not. After this had been going on for a while, Oberon, king of the faeries and Titania's husband, became increasingly annoyed with her, to the point where he wouldn't even enter the queen's chambers. Eventually, it became so aggravating to the king that he decided to fix it by making perfection. Outside of the castle, of course.
So he commissioned Puck to build "Halls of Music" for the queen. The king's big mistake was in choosing Puck, that notorious trickster, as the architect. Puck built the Halls to the queen's specifications, but he added in a few touches of his own.
For a while, Titania enjoyed her perfect music, but, eventually, she became quite bored with it all, and the Halls were forgotten by all. Well, not quite all. Puck remembered them, Puck also remembered all the work that they took to create. So he put into action one of his "additions". Namely, that the Halls would be erratically moving about the world of men. Once Puck sent them travelling, the Halls took a tour of the human kingdoms. Until recently, that is.
For some reason, the Halls have stopped near a small slave-trading post, ironically named "Release". Oddly, since the Halls appeared, the number of escapes has doubled, despite the increased vigilance on the part of the guards. Of all these escapees, only one was recaptured, a man named Jonovan Reams. That was back in the beginning.
Jonovan had escaped with another prisoner by killing one of the guards. When Jonovan and his companion escaped, they travelled into the hills. For three days they wandered aimlessly, searching for a more permanent home. Eventually, they stumbled upon the entrance to the Halls, nothing fancy, just a hole in the mountainside. Nonetheless, the went inside.
Secrets of the Halls
Whenever someone plays one of the flutes from the halls, the carvings will begin to shift and flow down the pillars. Gradually, the dancers will glide off the pillars and stone will become flesh. The different chains will then join hands, forming one long line of dancers, weaving in and out through the pillars. Anyone watching them must resist or be drawn into the dance. They will continue to dance until the flute playing ends, at which point the lines of dancers will return to the pillars. Flesh will become stone.
It is possible to try and pull someone out of the dance once they are part of the chain, but it is extremely difficult. Not only do the dancers on either side not want to let go, but the dancer himself fervently wants to dance through the Halls forever. The simplest way to gain back one who has joined the dance is to find a replacement willing to take the place of the dancer.
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? Responses (6)
Not a place to play music. What happens when the flute playing stops?
This is a fun submission. I always liked the faerie's gifts that seem great at first (Oh wow! This place has excellent acoustics and I sound great! Yes, dance to my music! Wow oh wow!) then turn horrendously tragic (I can't play anymore, thanks for dancing. Wait! Where are you going? Guys! No! NO!). I just wish it was more than a flavor piece, like there was an obstacle to overcome and a reward to be had. I don't see this dungeon ending well if encountered by players. Pretty much, a very creative party killer. You would have the flute player left alive. He could try to play some more and keep trying to pull people out, but it's so tedious and futile that I doubt this encounter would be enjoyable.
I could see this more useful as a problem to solve then as a trap for the reasons Pieh outlines, though summoned creatures or undead might be useful to replace current victims.
So the setup would be the disappearance of someone important enough to seek, with some information about the hazard involved. Obviously not too much info, but enough to prevent TPK.
I do agree with Pieh and valadaar. It's use would have to be carefully incorporated or the game could crash. In the history, you make reference to everyone forgetting about the halls except Puck, is there an additional 'forgetfulness' enchantment protecting the halls? I wonder how the halls would react to another musical instrument being introduced, perhaps one with it's own magical properties, like a bard's lute or something else. Cool idea.
Players may for example have a magical servant or golem (imagine a steel golem with an organ on its back... dude, gotta write >this< up!) play the instrument 'till kingdom come.
Might be good for information. Imagine the knowledge of some of those that are trapped. Could have some ancient keys to the current dilemma. Might be legends of it and stories of certain legendary figures that actually did get sucked into it. Might be interesting to free the legendary General of the Fifth Age and release him into the current world.