Shunned Gateway of the Ochre Sigils (Patreon)

The massive bars that keep out intruders are orange with rust – somehow appropriate for a place named after the yellow and orange sigils drawn on every wall. The ochre sigils extend out also, almost like they were trying to escape – stragglers cut and painted into the stone face outside.

Once a gateway through which the sorcerer-priests would summon demons and servitors from the Yellow Hells, the structure has fallen into disuse with the end of their religious practices in the Principalities of Black Sphinx Bay. It would seem abandoned except that the bars at the entrance have been pried open and new ochre symbols have been added to the demonic names that decorate this place.

Of course, with the sorcerer-priests gone, no one here knows exactly how the gateways worked… or even what the gateways were. Is the fountain with the gargoyle statue in area 4 a gateway? The pit of bones and debris in area 8? The small spheres set into the floor in two rows in 15? The whole structure is a puzzle now, and the prize for completing it is either access to the Yellow Hells, or giving residents of the Yellow Hells access to the complex.

And of course, the mummified remains of one of the ancient sorcerer-priests has awakened in the deserts of Zorisz and has come straight here. Either it seeks to escape to the hells itself (taking the Macguffin with it), or it seeks to bring forth demons to defend itself and remake the old faith of Zorisz once more.

The 1200 dpi versions of this map (which are downloadable at the Dodecahedron) were drawn at 300 pixels per square and are 10200 pixels wide (34 squares). For VTT use you’ll want to reduce that to either 34 squares (assuming 5′ squares) or 68 squares (assuming 10′ squares) at the VTT’s resolution (usually 70 pixels per square, so a width of either 2,380 or 4,760 depending on the scale you want to use – I recommend 10′ squares so the halls aren’t all single file spaces).

https://dysonlogos.blog/2020/09/19/shunned-gateway-of-the-ochre-sigils/