“I had a debate with a fellow scholar about the iron maidens and their lack of a voice. My college attributed it to the limitations of the Clockwork Renaissance. I hold a different opinion: by taking away the voice of these tragic souls, their selfish creators have stolen from them one of the only means of freedom. Command of an iron maiden is gained by speaking her name. If she could say it herself, would she then be her own master once again?”

—Professor Viktor Pendrake, Department of Extraordinary Zoology, Corvis University

Renowned expert in all matters of unusual beasts, there are few individuals who have seen as much of Immoren as Professor Viktor Pendrake—the High Chancellor of Corvis University’s Department of Extraordinary Zoology—and fewer still who survived the experience and chronicled the tale. His foundational work, the Monsternomicon, gives a detailed account of the many unusual encounters he has faced in his journeys across the Iron Kingdoms and beyond. To get the most out of these encounters, you will need a copy of Iron Kingdoms: Requiem and the Monsternomicon (get them at your local game store or store.privateerpress.com).

Background

During the Clockwork Renaissance, which marked the end of the Thousand Cities era over 1,200 years ago, the Tordoran infernalist Martem the Spider abducted the young woman Rosanna de Murcati, killed the young woman in a ritual whispered to him by the infernals, and transferred her spirit into a metal body he had prepared to receive it.

Rosanna awoke as an iron maiden, bound to the Spider’s will. He intended her to be the protector of his archive, a library of grimoires containing dark secrets gathered from his infernal masters, supplemented with lore from the Black Kingdoms of Morrdh.

Unable to break free from her killer, Rosanna was bound to watch over the Spider’s library as, for decades, the infernalist worked rituals and muttered dark incantations. Worse, he used her to slay abductees he brought to satisfy his own masters’ craving for souls. The iron maiden watched with great pleasure when the Spider’s health eventually gave out and kept her vigil once the infernalist was dead and his own soul claimed—but with a different purpose.

The archive contained volumes of lore of things dark and insidious. Rosanna knew that others would one day come seeking what it contained, and she would not allow the books to fall into anyone else’s hands. The Spider forbade Rosanna from damaging his precious tomes but instructed her to kill any interlopers who broke in.

So, in the crumbling ruins of the Spider’s home, Rosanna keeps her vigil, watching and waiting. He commanded her to guard the library, and so she will—against anyone who would use the Spider’s dark discoveries.

This encounter is suited for a group of 4 8th-level characters.

Martem the Spider hid his archive northwest of modern-day Five Fingers. He constructed the library underground and connected it via a stone tunnel to a home he built nearby. His home has long since collapsed, and even its foundations were scavenged in the intervening centuries. There is now just a square hole and a partially collapsed entry to the tunnel where the foundation once stood.

Rosanna wanders the chambers of the ancient library. If she is unaware of the characters’ presence, roll a d6 every 10 minutes. Rosanna moves to the chamber of the corresponding number, where she remains for the following 10 minutes.

Once she has become aware of the characters, Rosanna moves to guard the forbidden archive. She fights to the death anyone who attempts to enter the chamber.

Encounter Start

There are numerous ways to get the characters involved in this encounter. Suggested options include:

• Tressa Pearce, a Thamarite arcanist and occult investigator, has learned of the Spider in historical records. She believes—correctly—that the infernalist would have collected information in the ruins of his hidden archive. She puts out a call to anyone willing to delve into the library to recover the Spider’s books. However, her purpose is not nefarious; she wishes to learn more about infernals to combat them better when they return in force.
• Not every book in the archive is devoted to nefarious topics. For example, characters interested in history or arcana could discover legends about the library and the great wealth of books it contains.
• More than one enterprising explorer has, upon learning about the Spider’s library, tried their luck at getting in and making off with some of its contents. Most meet their end on Rosanna’s talons, their bodies left to rot within the hidden library. One managed to escape: a fiery Thurian adventurer named Muir Halkett, who lost an arm to the iron maiden. He offers the location of the library to adventurers in the hope they will deal with the iron maiden responsible for his injury.

The most obvious entrance is through the tunnel that leads to the entrance hall (area 1), but there are other entries. A sinkhole in the countryside allows entry to the research library (area 2). A character who searches the surface area can find the sinkhole or a concealed trapdoor entrance leading to the reading room (area 5) with a successful DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check.

The encounter begins when the characters enter the Spider’s library.

The archive has the following general features.

Ceilings. The ceilings are crumbling stonework and rise 10 feet above the floor.

Floors and Walls. The floors are made of dirty stone, worn away by the passage of centuries. Some areas of the floor are pushed up in irregular dips and hills, which are difficult terrain. The walls are mortared stone with roots growing through gaps in the mortar.

Doors. The doors are corroded iron. There are holes rusted in them that allow a creature to see from one side to the other. Unless called out in the text, the doors are all unlocked.

Lighting. During the day, beams of light shining through the ceiling provide dim light. At night, the area is completely dark.

Unusual Features. Throughout the library are the bodies of those who have come before and met their end at Rosanna’s claws. The bodies are in various states of decay, with the most recent being only a few years old. You can provide useful bits of adventuring gear, ammunition, or weapons on the corpses if the players need any supplies.

The following rooms are keyed to the included map and numbered for ease of use.

Other than the lantern, which contains no oil, there is nothing unusual about this room.

The research library contained volumes of non-esoteric knowledge that interested the Spider. Time and the damp have destroyed the majority of these books, but a character who searches the room can make a DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) check to discover 1d4 books that are salvageable.

These books contain information that was at the forefront of human knowledge at the time—which is now over a thousand years out of date. The books are written in an ancient dialect of High Tordoris. The books could fetch 25 gp each to a collector, if the characters could find such an individual.

The workshop is where the Spider constructed Rosanna’s metal prison and where he tinkered at other projects. Most of the contents of the workshop are degraded past usefulness, but there are a few objects of interest.

Iron Maiden Prototypes. The workshop contains pieces of several prototypes of iron maiden bodies in various stages of completion. A Medium humanoid can don the torso of one of the prototypes, which is the equivalent of a breastplate.

Clockwork Crossbow. The Spider tried his hand at equipping an iron maiden with this devise, a self-loading repeating crossbow. This is the equivalent of a heavy crossbow with the magazine (10) property.

Tools. Though most of the Spider’s tools are corroded beyond usefulness, there are enough of them in useable condition to assemble a single set of tinker’s tools.

Notebook. The Spider left behind a book of diagrams and notes about the process of creating an iron maiden. The book was alchemically preserved to protect it and is therefore in pristine condition. It contains a ritual—a failsafe of sorts—that would destroy the iron maiden with a word. A character who understands Ordic can make a DC 15 Intelligence (history) check to translate the text of the ritual.

The door to the ritual chamber is locked. A character can open the lock with a DC 14 Dexterity check made with thieves’ tools or can force the door with a DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check.

Skeletons. The bones are the Spider’s sacrifices to the infernals. If a character enters the ritual chamber, 1 minute later the runes on the walls begin to glow with reddish light and the bones begin to assemble. At the end of each minute, one skeleton rises and begins hunting the intruders. There are enough bones to create six complete skeletons. The skeletons have no weapons and attack with their fists, dealing 2 bludgeoning damage on a hit.

The process can be halted by a character who examines the runes and makes a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check to recognize a command word worked into the runes. Speaking the word aloud ends the effect and causes any of the animated skeletons to be destroyed.

Treasure. The skeletons have a few silver bracelets and rings set with gemstones that are worth a combined total of 30 gp.

Prison. There is a small prison through a door in the chamber’s north. The Spider would leave his sacrifices in the cage there to hold them until auspicious celestial conjunctions, believing that they aided in his work. The cage door is locked but can be opened with a successful DC 18 Dexterity check made with thieves’ tools. A key to this cage can be found on the Spider’s body in area 5.

The reading room is where the Spider would go late into the night poring over his books—and where he drew his last living breath.

The Spider’s Corpse. The Spider is nothing more than a skeleton now. His ceremonial robes are a tattered funerary shroud. He wears four rings, two on each hand. Three are mundane gold rings set with gemstones, worth 50 gp each. The fourth is the Ring of Othmetun, gifted to the Spider by the infernals. It is a ring of protection, and a character who attunes to the ring hears whispers in the infernal language, Nokiri, every time an attack misses due to the +1 AC provided by it.

There is a key on the floor near the Spider’s skeleton that unlocks the cage in area 4.

Table. The crystal decanter is mundane and its contents have long-since evaporated, but if cleaned it can fetch 10 gp as it is a fine piece of Tordoran history.

The book is one of the Spider’s spellbooks, the last one he wrote. Its contents are written in High Tordoris, but a character who speaks Ordic can glean its meaning with a successful DC 18 Intelligence (History) check. The last pages in the book summarize his life and the creation of his great “instrument,” the iron maiden. Feel free to use the Background section of this encounter to flesh out the contents of his journal.

Near the end of the journal, the Spider has included the following passage:

The spellbook contains Nokiri runic formulae for an assortment of 1st to 5th level spells from the conjuration and necromancy schools.

Escape Hatch. The Spider installed an escape hatch in the reading room in the event he was ever discovered while in his library. A metal ladder on the wall leads to the hatch, which opens onto the hillside above.

This chamber contains the scrolls and books the Spider collected over his career as an infernalist. Among the occult tomes are books dedicated to thrall creation, studies of the nature of infernals the Spider communicated with, and detailed instructions about the summoning of an infernal curator.

Scrolls. There are several spell scrolls in the archive written in Nokiri, including: animate dead, contact other plane, ray of enfeeblement, and vampiric touch. 

Freeing Rosanna

If one of the characters speaks Rosanna’s name, control of the iron maiden passes to that character. The characters can learn her name by reading the Spider’s last journal entry in the reading room, and her name is also engraved in High Tordoris along her spine between her shoulder blades.

If she is under a character’s control, the character can release Rosanna from her bondage. If the characters translated the notebook in the Spider’s workshop, a character can attempt a DC 16 Intelligence (Arcana) check to release Rosanna from her prison.

If a character controlling Rosanna refuses to release her, she obeys her new master. However, her spirit will begin to lash out with greater and greater force. Every 24 hours, Rosanna may attempt a Wisdom saving throw. The DC of the saving throw begins at DC 20, but decreases by 1 for each day she is controlled after the first. On a successful save, she breaks free of control and immediately becomes hostile to the character who was controlling her, as well as any creatures friendly to that character.

Conclusion

After infiltrating the library and destroying, controlling, or liberating Rosanna, the characters can explore the remainder of the Spider’s hidden archive.

You can use the books and contents of this ancient structure to seed more plot threads. Martem the Spider was an occultist who lived before the Orgoth landed in western Immoren, and the surviving books in his collection describe a much different world than the Iron Kingdoms of the modern day. You can offer up hooks pointing to the Spider’s fellow infernalists across western Immoren or of arcane relics the Spider sought, legends of ancient Tordoran treasures, and more.