Svirfneblin City Maze

This baffling network of twisting passages, secret doors, and dead ends (part of which is pictured on Map 10) is home to the Svirfneblin. The PCs will only be allowed to visit this place if they have won the deep gnomes' trust, and even then they will only see a small fraction of the city. This is the gnomes' ultimate refuge, and they prefer not to reveal too much to characters who might be captured by Illithid or worse and tortured into revealing all their secrets. All the tunnels and rooms here are gnomic-sized, no more than 4' high and often only half that wide, making them cramped by human standards.

If the PCs get into serious trouble during their explorations, they may try to come to the Svirfneblin for help. Carmeneren is a powerful priestess, with major access to Healing Sphere spells and minor access to Necromantic Sphere ones, and her magic could save their skins. However, the ever-wary Svirfneblin fear that the PCs might be followed by whoever has dealt them such damage and that it will come to finish them off and wipe out the Svirfneblin as well. In this first phase of the campaign, the PCs should be allowed once, and only once, to take shelter with the deep gnomes. They must be seriously damaged and in true need of the help of a 13th level priestess to justify this. The gnomes will not permit a second recourse to their priestess's skills. In terms of game balance, this is fair enough: Carmeneren can bestow such boons as Heal, and the PCs only get this benison for free once.

If the Svirfneblin at any point have reason to think that their enemies have discovered the whereabouts of their lair, they immediately evacuate the site through secret escape tunnels, leaving all the entrances to the city-maze sealed behind them. They then scatter, only to rendezvous again far away at a prearranged, long prepared spot, where they found a new city. Should PC negligence cause this event, the DM may wish to penalize the character(s) responsible (requiring an extra 10% to 20% XP to reach the next level should do the trick).

The Burial Grounds

The entrance to the long passageway leading to these catacombs intersects the passage to the Svirfneblin city-maze at point X2. The entrance is hidden by a sculpted stone door, perfectly flush with the wall of the passage, and a Hallucinatory Terrain spell centered on the door. Detect magic shows the existence of the hallucinatory terrain but does not reveal the secret door itself; this must be searched for normally. Because of the Hallucinatory Terrain, PCs will not be able to stumble across this door through simply checking for secret doors; not even an elf can chance upon it by accident. A True Seeing spell would reveal it, though a Find & Remove Traps roll is still necessary to discover the trick of opening it. Once the PCs find Player Handout 15, they can backtrack to this spot and search this general area until they find the door.

Disturbing the Dead

If the PCs learn of the treasures beyond the gnomes' burial ground, they may ask for permission to explore here. They will be refused. Carmeneren is fearful of having burial grounds disturbed by blundering PCs and doesn't know what they may, or may not, disturb. Svirfneblin guards are then posted at point X2 and the PCs will have to disable them (Hold Person, etc.) to gain access.

If the PCs come here and take the sorceress's treasures, then the gnomes will find out after a delay of 10+1d20 days. If they did not ask for permission, Carmeneren suspects the PCs and uses Detect Lie to check on their truthfulness. The PCs must give an absolutely honest account of what they have done and why they did it, swear an oath never to enter the burial grounds again, and make an offering of gems in the burial grounds of not less than 10,000 gp value to placate the angry priestess. Even so, the Svirfneblin remain doubtful of the PCs' integrity for some time to come. If the PCs refuse to make this offering, or if they raid the sorceress's treasures after being refused permission to do so, or if they despoil the gnomish graves, then they become persona non grata with the gnomes and receive no help from them in the future. The PCs should try to stay in the good books of the little folk at this time, for they still have information that will be of value to the characters.