This is the final section of the campaign. The characters have made it through the Shrine Maze and overcome various traps and defenses. Now, they come to the actual Shrine itself.
The last section involves a huge cavern with an underground lake. The Shrine itself resides in a set of underground chambers within the stony cliffs of the island.
There is a sarthak lord, a priest of sorts, that lives on the island and tends the Shrine. He is served by a number of mentally dominated slave servants.
The characters will have to cross the lake to the island, overcome the Sarthak Lord and his slaves and then defeat the Godbeast in the central chamber. Once the Godbeast is defeated, the characters can claim the Talisman thus ending the campaign.
The long corridor opens into a large square chamber. On the far wall is a pair of double doors, immense doors that seem to be made out of gold and iron. A pair of dwarves are there with an assortment of blacksmith tools. They are making repairs to a hinge on the doors.
When the dwarves notice the players, one of them lets out a shout of surprise. "By the Gods, what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here yet". The other one agrees. "You’re moving through the maze quickly”.
If questioned, these two dwarves will be very cooperative. They are slaves to the High Priest Lord Dathosar, a sarthak lord that tends the Shrine. The Shrine lies on a small island at the center of a small underground lake in a huge cavern... the entrance of which is very close. The Shrine is watched over by the sarthak lord and the slaves that serve him. In the stony cliffs of the island are a group of chambers and corridors. At the center of the island is the Shrine itself. The sarthak lord will make his slaves fight. There are many monsters ahead spawned by the great Godbeast that lives within the Shrine. The characters will face them as well.
The dwarves are slaves to the sarthak. They won't try to stop the group, but they can't join the party and help them either. The best they can do is let the players know what lies ahead and wish them luck. (And open the main gates for them).
After the Golden Gates, there is a long natural cavernous tunnel. It is 10 meters wide, 5 meters tall and extends 120 meters. It opens up into a truly mammoth cavern. This cavern is over 2 kilomters wide, roughly circular and 350 meters tall. A vast underground lake fills this cavern. A large stony island dominates the center of the lake. It's about 700 meters from the shore of the lake to the nearest cliffs of the island.
A thin mist is present throughout this great cavern and its difficult to see the far side. This only serves to magnify the apparent size of the cavern.
Once the characters reach the shore of the lake, they will need to find a way across the lake to the island. There are a number of creatures in the cavern that will attempt to stop them. All of these creatures are spawn of the Godbeast. In the waters, there is a large sea serpent. In addition, a large number of winged reptilian creatures that nest in high alcoves in the cavern walls will swoop down through the mist and attack the players. No matter how they choose to cross the lake, feel free to throw some monsters at them.
To spice things up, you could have Duthelm's forces break through the cavern wall on the far side. Perhaps they have been using a new spell to tunnel through at a different location. You could have them approach the island from the far side (and hence the players and the Duthelm forces would meet somewhere inside the island). Or if the characters summon a boat of some kind to cross the lake, the Duthelm forces might summon their own ship and it could end up being a sea battle on the underground lake! (With monsters attacking from the waters and above).
On the coast of the island, the characters find cliffs all around. But equally spaced around the island are great stone steps cutting straight into the cliffs rising up to platforms and huge iron doors. The characters will find carnivorous plants (spawned) along the beaches, coasts and cliffs of the island. At the four main entrances, they will find pairs of statues which animate and attack.
Once the characters get past the main gates and inside the island, they will find a number of interconnected chambers. These are the private living quarters of the High Priest Lord Dathosar, the sarthak that tends the Shrine. Here can also be found libraries, conference rooms, altars, meditation chambers and such. These chambers are for when sarthak lords come to visit and pray and worship.
The sarthak priest has several dozen slaves that serve him. Like the previous sarthak lord, his slaves come from many different races and professions. Lord Dathosar has a tribe of skrell that serve him as guards. He also has a trio of elven spell casters, four hulking hurkyte bodyguards and six mandalar bandits who are extremely good with bows.
In addition to his personal slaves, the Godbeast has spawned for him a number of acid blobbies. With only animal intelligence, these things have been trained. They normally are kept busy cleaning the walls and floors with their acidic abilities. However, when called into combat, they make formidable foes. These 8 creatures are little animated blobs of acid jelly. Their highly corrosive touch can rapidly dissolve anything except stone. These creatures will pursue the characters when ordered. They attack by touch. Grappling and dissolving.
Finally, Lord Dathosar is a skilled spell caster and telepath in his own right. He is quite capable on the battle field.
Lord Dathosar and his minions will fight a running battle in the corridors and halls of their island home in an attempt to prevent the party from reaching the Shrine. The elven sorcerers will summon walls of stone to block corridors and magically summon other creatures to aid. The mandalar bowmen will ambush the characters where they can. The hurkytes will lumber into battle as a last resort, but will stay close to Dathosar and guard him most of the time.
Either the party will slay them all or neutralize them. In any case, the inner most corridor is a long circular corridor that encirlces the central Shrine. Four entrances (north, south, west and east) lead into the Shrine.
The Shrine of the Talisman is an enormous circular domed chamber, over 150 meters in diameter. At the center of the chamber is a raised dais, 30 meters in diameter. There are four sets of stairs leading up the dais, one at each of the four cardinal points of the compass. Likewise, there are four entrances to the room equally spaced around the walls.
The Godbeast should be a terrifying site to behold. It is a rolling gelatinous mass of enormous size. The thing is at least 6 meters high and 20 meters in diameter, roughly blob shaped. It is constantly rolling and shifting, oozing and moving. It's details are constantly changing before the eye. It forms, retracts and reshapes itself in an endless cycle. Eyestalks, claws, pincers, pseudopods, tentacles, tails and other protrusions will emerge, attack and retract only to dissolve and reform again.
At any time, anyone within 6 meters of the Godbeast could be attacked by any number of limbs and each will take a different form. It's possible that a character in range could be clawed, hammered by a giant fist, encircled by a tentacle and stung by a stinger on a long stalk all in one round, only to find himself facing different limbs the next round.
The Godbeast should have a central pool of hit points. The total amount if up to you, the DM. Make it the toughest thing they've ever fought. The hit point total could be over 1000 if you've got a large group of high level characters. Any damage done to a limb or eyestalk or whatever counts against the central total. If a limb is hacked off (such as from a vorpal blade or a critical hit), the limb will continue to attack. Give it a set number of hit points and treat it as a separate monster from that point on.
The Godbeast In Combat
The godbeast, like all of its spawn, are gelatinous things on the inside. They
have no true internal organs. Therefore, it is impossible to score a critical
hit/backstab, etc.
The godbeast digests arrows that are fired into by forming
highly acidic pockets around them. The arrow will do normal damage, but will
then be dissolved within one combat round. Therefore, arrows that have special
warheads or magical effects might not get a chance to function.
The godbeast can grab and hold swords fast. Sticky mucus, strong muscle tissue
contraction, etc. This won’t affect a person under a Free Action spell or item.
All of the Godbeast minions can be Healed to max hit points at any time by remote control.
The God Beast spawns creatures at an alarming rate and THEY do the fighting. A variety of creatures. Some large, some small. Some are recognizable, others are unique abominations... the stuff of nightmares. In other words, feel free to throw every kind of monster at them you want. You can use standard monsters or use this as an opportunity to really get creative and come up with your own custom designed monstrosities.
For the most part, the Godbeast spawns biological variety. Things will come out with horns and tusks and claws... fins and wings, venoms and stingers, eye stalks and tongues, leathery hides, gelatinous goo, bone, blood and muscle. The spawned creatures will be reptilian, avian, mammalian, etc. But it will NOT be producing bizarre energy creatures or vaporous energy clouds or ghosts or anything like that.
Vary the variety, strength and frequency of the spawned creatures to suit the strength of the party. In general, the Godbeast will produce at least one new monster each combat round. However, if the party is having too easy a time of it, you can increase the spawning rate to 2 or 3 or 4 creatures per round. And perhaps some of them are rather BIG. :)
The Jaidor Talisman
The Jaidor Talisman itself can be seen in the center of the great gelatinous
beast. The Jaidor Talisman itself appears as a crown fashioned from pure
crystal. It is held within the Godbeast at the beast's center and it is glowing
brightly. The light can be seen through the semi-translucent flesh of the
Godbeast, illuminating it from within. But the characters won't be able to get a
clear look at the Talisman until their rip it out of the Godbeast's carcass.
Adding Complexity to the Battle
To add additional complexity to this battle, you might have some of the Duthelm forces enter the Shrine from the opposite entrance. If this happens, they will have to battle the spawned creatures and the Godbeast themselves. The Godbeast considers everyone an enemy.
You could play this several ways. If you want the players to win, then let them get to the Talisman first. The Duthelm forces will be able to hold their own, but they will find it difficult to advance through the horde of spawned monsters and unable to get close to the Talisman. The players will get their first. Either the players are going to come up with a creative solution to extract the Talisman from the Godbeast or they are going to have to kill it and cut it out from the dead flesh.
If you want, you can let the dice decide which group gets there first.
Or you could have the Duthelm forces reach the Talisman first, forcing the characters to fight and defeat them in order to get the Talisman.
Keep in mind that the Sarthak are aware of what transpires here in the Shrine and the Shrine Maze. They have been watching the characters progress. If you want, you could have the Sarthak show up... to complicate matters. They want to save their "god" once they see that the battle is going against it. Whether or not they arrive in time is up to you. It's also possible that something in their faith prevents them from intervening and altering the course of "ordained events".
Once the Talisman has been cut out of the body of the Godbeast, the victor will find themselves in possession of an artifact level item. The Jaidor Talisman is incredibly powerful. In sheer magnitude of power, the Talisman dwarves any other magic item in the campaign. With it, the user wields unspeakable power. It's powers are focused mostly on healing, creating and transforming matter, in particular living matter. It has many dozens of functions and abilities, but control of the Talisman is very complex. Only a very talented wizard can properly control it and even then, it would require days or weeks of study to control even the most basic functions. To control its most advanced functions, such as creating new life forms, would require years of study.
Destroying the Talisman
The party might choose to destroy the Talisman to keep it out of the hands of
the enemy. The players have been told that destroying the Talisman will undo the
morphian race, killing them all. This leaves them with a bit of a
quandary... a
moral dilemma if you will. If they destroy the Talisman, they will be
responsible for the genocide of an entire race which is a thoroughly evil and
despicable act.
If the Talisman is destroyed, it will unleash a tremendous shockwave of magical energy which will pass through walls and cavern stone. The destruction of the Talisman really will undo the magic of all it has created (such as the morphians). This magical shockwave is that very effect.
However, in actuality, the shockwave has a limited range (about 50 kilometers... it is not planet wide). It will kill all morphians and anything else created by the Talisman. This shockwave will, in effect, kill the Godbeast (if its somehow still alive) and obliterate all the spawned creatures throughout the dungeon. It will even wipe out anything up on the surface such as horde creatures and other abominations lurking in the ruins of the city of Shidar. Of course, the shockwave will do nothing against the Duthelm forces, but it will certainly wipe out everything else and clean up the battlefield in one fell swoop.
One more thing... destroying the Talisman will wipe out the Shidaran virus, that which would have killed the players without the antidote. The Talisman was the source of all the biological corruption including the virus. Now that the Talisman is gone, so is the effect of the virus. The players will no longer need the antidote to travel through the Desolation and they can use magic on themselves to hasten their journey home.
It's important to note that even though the shockwave has a limited range, destroying the Talisman and believing that you are wiping out a race is evil. It doesn't matter if you don't really kill the morphian race. It is the intent that matters.
There are many ways to conclude this. The party might defeat Duthelm and the Godbeast and claim the Talisman. Or it's possible Duthelm beats them to it and the party might have to pursue them out. Or it could be reversed and the party could be pursued by Duthelm.
Destroying the Talisman and releasing the shockwave is the most impressive way to end the campaign.
Once the party acquires the Talisman, the final result is up to them. Do they destroy it or keep it and learn its way. Let's not forget about Duthelm. If the force here is defeated, Duthelm will still be interested in acquiring the Talisman if it hasn't been destroyed.
Once the party is victorious, they face a long journey home. They have to get back out of the dungeon (which will be much easier if the Talisman is destroyed) and back to the surface. Then they have to get back out of the Desolation to civilized lands. Now that the Talisman is gone and the virus wiped out, they can use magic to get out of the Desolation faster.
They face a long journey home. They can travel west back through Aggradar or they can travel east across the Vast toward the west coast of Ithria. Either way, it's a long journey. But after everything they've been through, the journey home will be a piece of cake.
Back in Rukemia, if you actually role play it out this far, they will be welcomed home as heroes to parades. Riches, rewards and fame will be heaped upon them. They will be made Knights of the Empire and personally thanked by the Emperor himself.
And so ends the quest for the Jaidor Talisman.
Once again, I'd like to point out that these notes are only haphazardly organized and fairly incomplete. The original notes were written for me, for my specific campaign. I have touched them up only enough to give a DM the general idea. There are many details that will need to be filled in and customized by the DM to best fit his or her particular group of players and how their storyline unfolds. Also, this is just how I ran the Jaidor Talisman campaign. When you run it, feel free to change anything you want. Perhaps one day, I'll revisit these notes to include more specific detail. But for now, this should be enough to get you started. And if anyone ever has a specific question about this campaign, feel free to email me and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.
I wish you good luck and good gaming.
David
This website was last updated March 31, 2026. Copyright 1990-2026 David M. Roomes.