Jeeryth’s tower has a fairly simple layout, with each level a single room connected to the floors above and below. Many of the floors are not level, though, with some slanting as much as 60 degrees from horizontal. Moving on these floors requires a DC 0 Climb check (as if using a knotted rope); even the gentler slopes require a DC 10 Balance check to run or charge across.
The Madwood Citadel is now mostly abandoned, with only a few of Jeeryth’s undead experiments roaming the area. It is always possible, howev er, that some new necromancer or undead might choose to take control of the citadel and use it as a hidden base of operations.
Since Jeeryth’s death, no one has fully explored the tower and returned to tell about it. Rumors persist of a dungeon below the tower’s walls, but if an entrance has been found, no one has reliably reported it yet.
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Main Entrance: The main entrance to the tower is carved to look like an elf’s face screaming in agony, with two sturdy doors leading to a large ground floor. The doors are not locked; Jeeryth was worried about warding off an army of elf warriors, not petty thieves. Two flesh golems cobbled together from dead elves stand in the entry hall at the foot of the stairs leading up. Before their master’s death, they were given instructions to attack all elves who entered, and they still follow these orders explicitly. If a group containing no elves or half-elves approach, the golems will let intruders pass without moving (though they attack any creature that attacks them).
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Tower: The hatch at the top of the stairs leads to the first of many floors teeming with undead horrors. All the floors of the citadel are closed off behind identical hatches, each sealed with an arcane lock (caster level 12th). The hatches have a break DC of 33 (including the effect of the arcane lock). Stairs or ladders connect each level.
The contents of each level of the tower are as yet a mystery. While some floors might hold the undead remnants of Jeeryth’s work, others might be empty. According to one adventurer who set foot in the Madwood Citadel and lived to tell the tale, certain floors seem to come alive with illusions and terrors designed to steal one’s mind. This poor soul reported that the tower would repeatedly show him his heart’s desire in a dreamlike haze, then twist it into a dark caricature of all that was good and pure.
- Jeeryth’s Quarters: The top three floors of the tower were Jeeryth’s personal quarters, and still contain many of his personal effects and magic items. A DC 25 Search check can find a talisman that opens any of the sealed hatches in the tower (as if the wielder were the caster of the arcane lock spell).
The ghost of Jeeryth Ritaal still haunts these rooms, insane and prone to fits of rage. Ironically, the unfinished business that ties the elf necromancer to this plane is his burning desire to become a lich, and he spends all his time half-coherently researching a magical process that can never succeed because he is already dead.
At the very top of the tower is the library, containing all the elf’s magical research notes, spellbooks, and experimental reagents. It also contains a secret trapdoor. When alive, Jeeryth would enter and exit the tower through this hatch to avoid dealing with the undead below. Now that he, too, is undead, Jeeryth is trapped by his ghostly nature, and can never leave the citadel. He has seen more than one would-be archmage attempt to set up operations in his home, but so far all have been driven as mad as he.