Three hexes south, three southwest of Alakran.
The shimmering black stalks of palms prick the horizon like upright clove-buds in the heat. You get closer; it's no mirage, and a green verge blooms above the undulating flats. The palms show their slatted fronds, and you see they stand evenly spaced around the greenery, almost as if planted.
Once inside the ring of trunks, dropped dates squelching underfoot, you struggle through bushes heavy with red, wrinkled wolfberries, and thorny shrubs hung with the small green globes of hanza fruit. Soon you reach the rocky lip of a spring that slowly spills its water among thick growths of reeds and vines. The stones, you see, are carved; are those the faces of a god, the ancient sacred writing? Was a temple once erected here, thrown down to border a welcome well?
If you drink here... You feel fine, but you start making excuses not to leave the oasis. Your quests and cares melt away, you see there is sufficient food to eat; how many who are not kings can say they are as well provisioned? As your companions or your conscience remind you that you might be a little bit enchanted, you seem to remember a golden glint you saw in the water. A cup perhaps, or a lamp. You become convinced that this is the key, the way, the artifact that will break the curse. You dive deep, and the waters claim you, or perhaps what is under the water does.
If you eat of the fruit here, be it brown, or green, or red ... The same thing happens, and you are convinced that the half-buried stones that you now see scattered under the shrubs hold the key to your release from the curse of an ancient temple. You dig, you delve, but the soil is sandy and treacherous with the buried megaliths, and the stone topples, the sand swallows.
If you sleep here ... You dream of leaving, but you never do. The well, the plants, the soil obliterate any trace of your existence over the years.
Apply saving throws to taste; if there is no save, then the adventurer's friends will have to do.
Note: The cursed oasis is a feature seed that arose by chance in my homebrewed content generator, and also stands as quite the classic desert venture peril. Having heard tales of a Chatty Genie PlayTester newly unleashed upon the world, your devoted author prompted this Aien Djinn to see what it could spit out as a legend of this place. I will recount its own mirages at a suitable empty spot in the crawl, and how these in some small way came to reflect the reality of this place.
No comments:
Post a Comment