The Road of Skulls

The primary Road of Skulls runs nearly 300 miles from Dorakaa to Kendragund. The highway is 60 yards wide and composed of utterly barren and blasted earth. At intervals of 60 yards along its entire length, a skull is impaled on a six-foot blackwood staff on each side of the road, firmly rooted at the margin. Littered in between these impaled skulls at random intervals are small cairns of other victim's skulls left there by Iuz's forces. The skulls are all humanoid types, but are predominantly human. Many are weathered and yellowed. Some have jawbones missing. Many issue wisps of smoke from time to time, with slowly drifting curls rising from them. This is but a petty magic, but it adds to their sinister quality. The impaled skulls are the important ones, since many are magical; roll D12 and on a roll of 5+, the skull is magical. Any individual impaled skull has a random magical attribute, determined by a roll from the D100 table below.

D100	Skull Magical Attribute
01-10	Skull has a magic mouth which screams if a good-aligned creature comes within 100 yards.
11-20	Skull can breathe a 10' x 10' x 10’cloud of fire 2/day for 4d6 hp of damage.*
21-30	Skull can fire 1 tooth per round, on command*, as a +2 magic missile (dmg. 1d4+2) with range values of 4/8/12. Lost teeth are regenerated after 1d8 days.
31-40	Skull radiates protection from good 30 foot radius.
41-50	Skull can be commanded* as a screaming skull 1/day.
51-60	Skull can project a ray of enfeeblement to 90 foot range 2/day on command.*
61-70	Skull can project a shout on commando 2/day.*
71-80	Skull can breathe a stinking cloud on command* 1/day.
81-85	Skull can be commanded* to explode as an 8HD fireball. Those within 5' also suffer ld6 flying bone shard damage, with no saving throw.
86-90	Skull has 2 attributes.
91-00	Skull has decayed magical function and does not work, but will still radiate magic if checked for.

*Note: Such functions can only be commanded by a priest or wizard in Iuz's service of level 7+, who employs a blackstaff or bonewand as a medium to command the skull. This does not involve any expenditure of charges from the magical item.

Of course, priests, wizards and powerful warriors traveling this road often carry bonewands, blackstaffs being much rarer, to activate skull functions. Skulls must be periodically "recharged." There is a 1% chance per use of a commanded function that the skull will lose its magic attribute and a mage or priest of level 14+ is needed to recharge it.

Iuz's forces are now building the Skull Trails. The one from Dorakaa to Grunlend Keep has recently been completed, but work is still progressing on the one to Molag. Though a highway runs all the way to Molag, magical skulls have only been placed for 30 miles beyond the Devouring Bridge, and for 60 miles north of Molag. Work continues on the rest of the road.additional ones, perhaps with a lesser range of effects, and/or effects of less malign nature, elsewhere along the Road of Skulls.

Along these great highways, battalions of soldiers, murmuring and graying priests and acolytes, chained slave gangs, and a handful of other travelers pass. All must state their business at every watchpoint they pass, though bribery could get the seditious traveler past the lesser watchtowers in most cases, unless a priest of Iuz is present, of course.