Room 7: Athganazar’s Laboratory
This area is a separate level that can only be accessed by the methods described in Room 6: The Crucible.
As the arcane mist dissipates, you appear in what looks to be an ancient laboratory which while dusty and archaic, has seen recent use. Tables along the walls and shelves set into alcoves in the walls are filled with various alchemical apparatus, half-completed mixtures and parchment. In the center of the room is a stone bier upon which rests a body draped in silken robes. A cracked flask with what remains of a dark, viscous liquid is on the floor nest to the body.
Athganazar is not actually dead but is instead a Proto-lich who has so far failed in the attempts to achieve the full undead status and abilities he desires.
This laboratory is where Athganazar’s soul has been awaiting new bodies to possess and attempt to finish his transformation into a lich. His dead body is what is lying upon the bier while his soul has moved into his phylactery (a plain seeming stone jar upon the top shelf along one wall of the room. It will appear as magical to detect magic, despite its otherwise plainness. The jar is tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40) from which he will attempt to possess (via magic jar spell) the character that has seemed the most resourceful in solving the challenges up to this point.
His plan is possess one of the players and attempt to have them drink the remains of the liquid in the flask to attempt to create a new lich body for himself. If he succeeds then he will go ahead and kill the party.
Failing that, he will attempt to kill as many characters as possible, leaving the possessed body if it is slain to return to the jar and to possess another, continuing this until there is only one character left. When only one remains, he intends to possess that body and to use it to make another attempt at successful lich creation.
To defeat him, the party will need to locate and destroy the phylactery (thus leaving him no avenue of egress) and to either kill the character which he has currently possess of to find a way to otherwise force him to leave that body. If forced to leave or the possessed body slain after the phylactery is destroyed, (and there is no active Proto-Lich body ready for him) Athganazar will be destroyed.
The flask of dark liquid in the flask is the remains of the lich creation potion that Athganazar drank which killed his body but left it in a state of perfect preservation. If a PC tastes the dark liquid then they must save or die (Con DC 30). If they succeed they then take 20 pts of damage. If they fail their body becomes a new, empty proto-lich ready for Athganazar to possess. Likewise, if they spill or apply the liquid to the body lying upon the bier then that body will also become a revitalized proto-lich vessel suitable for possession as well.
Posted in 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons / d20 fantasy / Pathfinder, Encounter, Magic Item and tagged Fantasy, The Tomb of Athganazar by Stephen Hilderbrand with no comments yet.
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