Dungeon Vignette - The Cathedral of Knives

Dungeon Vignette articles will describe a room or small area within a dungeon that can be easily dropped into another dungeon or used to spark adventure ideas.

The Cathedral of Knives is the nickname for a moderately wide cavernous passage with jutting spines of very sharp stone. Movement through the passage is treated as difficult terrain with the added problem of taking damage each round from the numerous unavoidable cuts and scrapes.

The passage is 40' across at its widest point and 90' long from entrance to exit. The ceiling is 30' high at the central peak. There is a cleared section through the center of the passage that is 15' wide by 30' long, but this is also quite dangerous because some Ropers have laid eggs on the ceiling. 

The Roper eggs have hatched into Piercers that wait for slow moving targets to enter this section where they will drop on their intended prey. Then the Piercers will climb back up safely via a large stalagmite column to await the next meal.

Damage amounts should be adjusted for the level of your party. 

Mitigation efforts should be welcomed, such as Flight, Dimension Door, Teleport, and other transport methods that can get them above the man high level of the cutting surfaces.

Abilities that allow movement free of difficult terrain are also helpful for reducing the time spent exposed to the harsh environment.

Creative approaches can have drawbacks. Parties attempting to place boards, tables or doors across the tips of the stone will be disappointed when the weight snaps the tips causing a collapse into the jagged cutting edges. Taking the hours, perhaps days required to smash away the worst of it so that a trick like the boards can work should be allowed, and even preparing the surface to make use of Wall of Stone.

This particular vignette should not be the only way to an objective, but should be used as a short-cut while the other, easier path is a long way to get to the objective.

Depending on how much you want to challenge the party, consider having one of the Roper parents be encountered a few rooms later. "My offspring left some food for me! Yum."