In the face of a vast sandstone bluff, a wide cave mouth marks the entrance to Qataakhast’s lair. The area has a reputation among local Syrks as a home to yuan-ti, but the band of the serpent-folk that might have once dwelled here was gone long before the great wyrm’s arrival. He allows the rumors to continue by ensuring that Rumura spreads them anew on his travels, in hopes of maintaining his privacy. Qataakhast is always happy to meet those who seek him out, but he does not wish his formidable size and frightful presence to inadvertently alarm the tribes that call the adjacent grasslands home.
Outside the guest chambers, much of the interior of Qataakhast’s lair was excavated with disintegrate, and its walls are unnaturally smooth. The corridors and chambers are rounded to better fit the great wyrm’s enormous bulk; smaller creatures must walk single file along the curved stone floors. Individual chambers have gently sloping floors and domed ceilings.
Keyed Locations
The following features correspond to numbered areas on the map.
- Empty Cave: This deserted cavern hides the entrance proper to Qataakhast’s lair. The dragon has intentionally left signs of habitation and a scattering of yuan-ti relics in the cave. However, a successful DC 20 Search check indicates that nothing has been touched in decades. It also reveals the tracks of a Gargantuan creature scarring a well-trodden path through the cave toward the back wall.
That back wall is a carefully constructed secret door (Search DC 30) that radiates faint abjuration, conjuration, and divination magic. The door opens automatically at Qataakhast’s approach but can be otherwise breached only by creatures bearing gifts. Near the door is a wide ledge with signs that numerous objects have been placed upon it. Once each creature in the cavern sets a gift for Qataakhast on the ledge, the door swings wide to allow them to pass. Gifts need not have any real worth but be of some value to the owner or be brought specifically as a gift (as determined by a permanent detect thoughts effect active in the area). Once the door is open, petitioners can enter, along with their gifts. - Guest Chambers: Guests of Qataakhast stay here. Through an arch at the end of a rough stone passageway, a shimmering portal reveals a high-ceilinged great hall. This wing of the cavern does not actually exist in Sarlona. Rather, the portal opens up into the extradimensional space of a Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion of Qataakhast’s own design. The dragon casts the spell daily while in the lair, even if he has no guests in residence. If he is not here to cast the spell, the passageway ends in blank stone.
The palatial interior has been appointed in the finest Syrk style. Across all the pale sandstone walls, tapestries weave a riot of color. Thick woven mats cover the floors of the great hall, dining hall, and lounge. Within five circular guest chambers, piles of colorful pillows do double duty as seats or beds. In the domed dining hall, a dozen comfortable chairs surround a large marble table where guests can partake of delicious food and drink at any time. Sweet-scented braziers burn constantly in all areas, and the mansion’s magical servants are at guests’ beck and call. - Qataakhast’s Hoard: The great wyrm’s hoard chamber is his residence within the lair, though when speaking with guests, he prefers to sprawl beneath the open sky. Qataakhast’s hoard is a remarkable mix of the valuable and the mundane, featuring historical treasures collected over the dragon’s long life, as well as an amazing assortment of trinkets and gifts he has amassed from visitors, supplicants, and his own travels.
Coinage and riches dating back to the rule of the sorcerer-kings can be found here, as can worthless jewelry of brass and stone, carved tokens of the eneko nomads, racks of antlers and cured pelts, moldering cloth, ancient books of no particular value, and more. However, the bulk of the dragon’s treasure pile is a veritable mountain of Khyber dragonshard fragments. Like his Argonnessen kin, Qataakhast covets these physical pieces of the Prophecy. Many of the Khyber shards he has collected over the space of thirty centuries have been worn down to pebble-sized fragments that endlessly shift beneath the dragon’s enormous bulk. - Chambers of Reflection: In this extended reach of smooth-walled caverns, three thousand years of personal memoir have been carefully inscribed in Draconic. The lore here represents an almost complete (if somewhat one-sided) history of Rhiavhaar for a millennium before the Sundering, and of Syrkarn in all the years since. The points that Qataakhast has chosen to record are sometimes obscure, but anyone familiar with dragons’ interpretation of the Prophecy can see how the great wyrm has drawn lines between apparently random events sometimes hundreds of years apart. A character who can read Draconic receives a +1 bonus on a single Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local [Sarlona]), or bardic knowledge check for every hour spent in study here (maximum +10).
At the end of the northern branch of the passageway lies a small chamber with blank walls. Qataakhast has long intended to fill this space with his account of Vyssilthar’s return.