12. Hidden Morgue (Combat, Treasure)
A 15′ × 15′ room accessible only by a secret door — a PC succeeding on a Wisdom (Perception) check of 15 will notice the hairline seam; whilst on a Wisdom (Perception) check of 10 a character will hear the faint sounds of people arguing in common tongue.
Benches, scattered embalming tools, and a dusty old tomb on dwarven burial rites indicate that this was used for preparing the bodies entombed in rooms 9–12. Four recently thawed cold legion minions are in here, rooting through the detritus and arguing on how to escape this prison. They are carrying 75 cp between them. Amid the melting ice, there a heap of trash, under which is hidden a pottery jar containing 200 cp.
Combat: 4 × cold legion minions.
Terrain: Piles of detritus are difficult terrain. The workbench can provide half cover.
13. Veteran’s Prison (Empty)
Segregated from the corridor with iron bars, a 20′ × 20′ chamber containing an altar to Moradin. The east wall is an ice block. Just visible within it is a frozen cold legion veteran.
14. Worker’s Rest Area (Empty)
A 15′ × 20′ room with a fireplace and two chairs. The fireplace has not been lit since the catacomb’s builders left three hundred years ago.
15. Ice Carving Chamber (Combat)
A lozenge-shaped room, 40′ × 80′. The four entrances are covered with thick white curtains that have faded little over the years. The curtains are drawn except for the south-western entrance. Chains, hooks, pulleys and large ice saws are scattered around and hanging from the ceiling. This chamber was used to prepare frozen cold legion warriors for internment in other rooms.
Combat: 4 × cold legion minions, recently thawed, are following the tracks of ice rats through here. They are carrying 50 sp between them.
16. Everice Concourse (Combat)
A concourse, with ice block walls and angular floor tiles that form an arcane symbol around the central block. Ice chi once flowed into the symbol, maintaining the everice and imprisoning members of the cold legion. Now the walls are thawing, many minions have already broken free. A cold legion slinger noisily stomps in a clockwise direction around the concourse, occasionally shouting out in celebration, flanked by two minions
Combat: 1 × cold legion slinger; 2 × cold legion minions. The minions will attempt to screen the slinger from melee attacks.
Terrain: Patches of ice require a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check when stepped on to avoid falling prone.
17. Guardian’s Room (Treasure, Deadly Trap)
A secret room, concealed by a thin layer of ice. In the centre, a buckler guardian stands waiting. It was supposed to be patrolling the catacomb but does not seem to be functioning. If the party have found all five of its missing components, it can be reactivated. To do so, a character must succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence check, with each attempt taking 1 hour. On a roll of a natural 1, one of the components is damaged and no further attempts can be made. The functioning buckler guardian will recognize the party as agents of the catacomb’s owner and follow the party to aid them in combat (although it cannot leave the catacomb.)
By its side, a silk sack sits on a pedestal. It contains 300 cp and 300 sp, but the pedestal is protected with a glyph of warding. The glyph is only noticed on a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check (DC 16). If the sack is removed, creatures within a 20-foot-radius must pass a DC 16 Dexterity saving throw. Creatures takes 5d6 thunder damage on a failed saving throw, and half as much on a success.
18. Minion’s Prison (Empty)
A small 30′ × 10′ room with four small pillars. The south wall is a block of ice holding four frozen cold legion minions.
19. Storage (Empty)
These four staggered 30′ × 30′ rooms were used for storage while the catacombs were active. Hundreds of stone bins line the walls, containing ice picks, shovels, saws, boxes of nails, hinges, and other tools and fittings; now all horribly rusted. In the centre of each room is a 9′ orthostat, 5′ × 5′ at the base.
20. False Tomb (Trap)
A 20′ × 20′ room with a 10′ × 5′ layer of thin ice in the centre. Underneath the ice is visible a frozen ice horde veteran, surrounded by glittering coins. The prisoner and the coins are an illusion. Breaking the ice destroys the illusion, revealing an empty pit and triggering a poison needle trap.
21. Unfinished Tomb (Empty)
This is a natural crevasse in the ice wall. At the end is a sarcophagus carved from ice. It is half-finished, with tools scattered around.
22. Regulator Chamber (Combat)
A 20′ × 15′ room. Arcane channels in the wall once regulated the flow of everice through the catacomb. Now they are just hollow grooves.
Combat: 1 × cold legion veteran and 3 × cold legion minions are here, throwing knives at an ice rat pinned to the wall.
23. Grave Entrance (Empty)
From the ceiling hangs a pewter pull-chain. Pulling it activates a mechanism that raises the heavy bar locking the door to the south. Pulling it again lowers the bar.
24. Mass Grave (Hazard)
An irregular room, about 30′ from corner to corner. The stone doors in the north-east corner are shut with heavy iron bars (each weighing 180 lb). They can be lifted temporarily from within this room, or raised via a mechanism from room 23.
The bodies of ice horde minions that never regenerated were dumped in a pit to the south-west. They have long since decayed to a pile of bones, picked clean by ice rats, but the carrion stench still lingers. Steps lead down into the pit.
Much of these remains are covered in yellow mold (Dungeon Master’s Guide 105), and searching through the bones will disturb it.
25. Shaft (Obstacle)
A diagonally-oriented 20′ × 20′ room with no visible floor: from wall to wall there is a deep pit. The jump distance from the western door to the eastern corridor is 25′. The pit is 30′ deep (4d6 damage on a fall), with smooth ice walls (DC 25 to climb). The bottom of the pit is littered with the remains of small animals that fell down and could not climb out.
There is no ledge, so it would be most unfortunate if the door was shut and barred with members of the party on the eastern side.
26. Zombie Room (Combat)
This chamber is blocked east-to-west by fallen masonry. There are four zombies (Monster Manual 316) here. At some point, someone has tried to disguise their rotting smell by decorating them with pungent, rare herbs (worth 25 sp)
27. Minion’s Prison (Empty)
A 30′ × 30′ chamber of ice, with ice horde minions imprisoned and frozen in the walls. There are several small ice statues depicting dwarves fighting the horde.
28. Ritual Room (Combat)
A 20′ × 20′ ice chamber filled with rubble. Amidst the rubble is broken stone furnishings: this area was once used by dwarven clerics to prepare ice chi for the frozen pool. The ceiling collapsed some time ago. A swarm of white drakelings have taken roost here, and are cruelly pecking at a fallen adventurer. 21 cp are scattered around.
Combat: 3 × white drakeling swarms. If the drakelings are defeated, the adventurer can be an ally if healed. See Naranzorig, below.
29. The Frozen Pool (Quest Room, Treasure)
A 30′ × 30′ chamber. The entrances to the north and west are blocked with two sets of portcullis separated by one foot; one steel and one brass. While a feat of strength will lift a portcullis (DC 25 Strength), one person is required per portcullis to allow the whole party through.
At the top of the steps is a 30′ × 30′ room with an alcove in the southeast. In the alcove is the frozen pool. It is a disc of elemental ice, 4 feet in diameter, lit from beneath with a dwindling blue light. It is ringed with brass and granite coping. Behind the pool is a thick tapestry, glittering with frost, depicting the acolytes of Nalrim activating the pool for the first time, locking the cold legion in their prison. Hidden behind this tapestry are three chests, containing 9 citrine gems, 700 cp, 300 sp and 120 gp.
The ice chi given to the party must be dropped into to refreeze the catacomb. The moment this is done, the catacomb will begin to refreeze, and the corridors and hallways will resound with the creaking of ice reforming. The party have 10 minutes to reach the exit before it becomes solid ice!
30. Secret room
The entrance to this 5′-diameter room might be spotted from the corridor by noticing a patch where the wall has thinner ice (DC 20). The interior is a vent, of sorts, where heat is expelled from the dungeon. Condensation drips from the rough stone wall, and the sky can be seen through a grill some 30 feet above.
This area is chilly, but warmer than the rest of the catacombs, and is a suitable place to rest for a party of no more than four characters. In addition, the wall can be climbed and the grill removed, providing an alternate exit if the main entrance has frozen over.
A DC15 Investigation check of the room will reveal a trinket buried under a pile of snow.