A handful of keys, verbose.

A fragment of the dungeon key, as I fiddle with different levels of detail for my keying process.


Unless specified, doors on the first floor are single wooden doors with lacquered woodcrafts that often hint at a room's content if it is meant for use by anyone but servants. There are no windows, and the courtyard wall is 20' tall.

1. Hall - wide, tiled black & red marble floor, crimson carpet from main double dark oak double doors up the double staircase to 2nd floor. Doors on the east and west wall, on the south wall on either edges of the room (near the first two), and past the staircase, to the east, west and north. A crystal chandelier hangs above the foot of the stairs, its candle holders are hollow glass vials filled with a poisonous gas that burns the lungs and kills slowly, no save. A grandfather's clock lies at the stairs' middle point - an hour past midnight, it strikes the thirteenth hour, which fills the manor and its basement with a thick mist that halves lights' ranges and doubles encounter rates.

2. Vestibule - coat hangers and fine cushioned chairs line the walls, adjoined with coffee tables.
A mother-of-pearl servant doll is assigned to this room, keeping it clean and well-ordered. She is wearing a blonde dyed wig and a maid's uniform, as well as partially faded makeup. In case of interlopers, she will ask for them to be seated and ask if they would like some tea and biscuits while they wait. If they behave, she will go to the kitchen and prepare tea or whatever they asked for, using the nearest available analogue if an ingredient cannot be found. She will not resist if harmed, and profusely apologize for whatever wrongdoing she assumes caused the violent outburst. Like all servant dolls, she has a still beating heart, located where a human one would be. Destroying it kills her.

3. Chapel - the door to the chapel is lined with silver and jade depicting the trickster Moon God, half its face contorted into a painful smile while the other weeps joyfully. Behind the lectern is a tall metal cross with a crescent moon going from one arm of the cross to the other, dried blood cakes the rusting metal and barbed wire rests around the whole thing, about 30' of it. On the cross, vermilion scrawl glyphs state "drink, feast, and be merry". No ritual done here will attract the Moon God's attention, however gruesome or cruel. The small rooms past the chapel served as an office and a bedroom to an attending dark priest, respectively. His journal can be found under the pillow, bound in warm leather. Most of the pages are ruined, but a few scraps remain:

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O Blessed Prince of Longing, Hallowed be Thy Name!

Grant Us the Mercy of Your Golden Touch!

The Heavens Smile Upon Your Most Sacred Path:

Deliver Us From Despair, Keep the Walls of Beacon Ever-Stalwart And,

With Thine Divine Sword, Slay the beast That Lies in The Dark

 -

The lowly peasant fears the Horrors that lie beyond the Wall.

The Craftsmen of Beacon fear the Church and its audits.

The Priests fear the Nobles and their dreadful appetites.

The Nobles fear the Red Hand's hidden knives.

The Red Hand fear The Prince's judgment.

I do not fear The Prince, for I lay every night by His side and  every night I hold Him in my arms as he weeps and screams in his sleep, repeating the words of Prophecy.

I fear the Thing at the Heart of the  Darkwood, and whatever Fate awaits my beloved on the Day of Pilgrimage.

-

I can sleep no longer, the litanies do not work, the Gods do not listen, the work I've done, the Grand Plan, it was all for naught. I can hear her scratching behind the walls of the smoke-filled hall of depravation, and saw her dancing in the shadow of the stone guests. I hear her making her way to my bed chambers, drawkcab sklaw ehs.