The Quiet Shrine For Shadowdark RPG

The Quiet Shrine - a 4th Level Dungeon Crawl for Shadowdark RPG

Nearly three centuries ago, the dwarves of Clan Hammerhand carved this shrine-tomb into a cliff face deep within a remote mountain valley. The site marked the terminus of a rich emerald vein believed to be blessed by Ord the Unbending, the Secret-Keeper, and was sanctified as a place of worship, ritual, and final rest.

The purpose of the complex was threefold:

A Shrine

Dwarves would once ritually offer gems and precious stones into a well of balance, believed to descend into Ord’s hidden sanctum.

A Tomb

In a secret chamber, the dwarves interred Thordran Gemwarden, high priest and lore keeper of Clan Hammerhand, who claimed Ord whispered truths to him from deep within the stone.

A Retreat

The stone halls were once a place where dwarves could study, meditate, and offer quiet devotion to the god of knowledge and equilibrium.

Death of a Clan

The shrine thrived for a time, watched over by a devout custodial order until the War of Earth’s Flame. A brutal, subterranean conflict was waged between the Hammerhands and the duergar of the Blightstone clan. Contact with the shrine was severed. When the Hammerhands were besieged and their strongholds falling, no guardians remained to tend the sanctuary.

Intruders

Decades passed in silence, until the shrine was discovered by duergar scavengers. They found the upper levels undisturbed and the tomb sealed by ancient rites. Intrigued by the lure of treasure and relics, the duergar dug deeper, excavating fissures that had opened in the bedrock.

But in doing so, they awakened worse things. Cave Brutes, drawn from the depths of the underworld by the scent of flesh and the noise of excavation. The beasts burst through the caves, collapsing parts of the shrine and slaughtering the duergar, feasting on them and claiming the site as a lair.

A Lost Ruin

The Quiet Shrine lies half-buried and half-broken. Its holy places are desecrated, its defenses cracked, its silence disturbed not by reverence, but by the echoing burrow of chitin claws. Yet the dwarven wards endure in part, and within the hidden tomb, Ord’s sacred charge still sleeps undisturbed...

...until now.