Dark Room Cenotaph

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The Cenotaph is the chamber that is aligned with Stygia.

Apprentice Mystery of the Cenotaph

Opacity: 2 • Interval: Scrutiny takes 1 hour per test.
Surface Information: This is the result of any successful Revelation test done before the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

  • The object in front of you is a soulstone, a calcified piece of a mage's Awakened soul. You have a momentary vision of the mage at the moment they created this soulstone. It embodies the Ruling Arcana of your Path, and is a sympathetic connection to that Realm.
  • The soulstone was calcified about thirty years ago, and they are clearly one of the creators of the Antechamber as well.
  • You can discern something strange at the heart of the soulstone: your own name, scribed in High Speech as you wrote it on the Watchtower.
  • In order to begin to Scrutinize the soulstone, you must have 2 dots in both of the Ruling Arcana of your Path.
  • Gain 1 Arcane Beat.

Deep Information: This is the result of a successful Revelation test done after the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

The Leaden Door

  • A great leaden door covered in strange mechanisms shaped like chains interwoven with the gears. In the center of it is a green glass tube that bubbles with a strange greenish mist (ectoplasm). There are vents in the top and bottom of the tube, but they are blocked by the mechanism.
  • Mystery of the Leaden Door: Opacity: 2 • Requirement: must be studied with Death and Matter mage sight by someone who has fully Revealed the Antechamber Mystery
    • Surface Info: created by Awakened magic using Death and Matter, about the same time the Antechamber was made
  • 8 Deep Info: the door's mechanisms must be altered with a Compelling Matter practice to unseal the ectoplasm, and then the ectoplasm manipulated via a Compelling Death practice to unlock the door.
  • Opening the door requires the use of Remote Control (Matter •), which removes the locks and unseals the tube, followed by Ectoplasmic Shaping (Death •) to pull ectoplasm out of the door and use it to animate and open the door.

The Chamber

  • A dark, dusty, cold room carved of stone. The mortar between the blocks of stone appears to be shaped lead. One wall hosts a great stone table, with the implements of craftsmanship tucked into small niches carved just beneath the table's lip.
  • The walls are great arches of stone, the keystone to each arch being an actual human skull mortared into its place by intricate carved lead filigree. Great gates of dark lead bars block each of the archways, although the strange darkness beyond seems to undulate and shift like a black fog. Whispers occasionally float up out of the darkness. Set into each of the lead gates is a block of pure bone-white stone, carved with sigils in High Speech like tombstones mounted to the wall.
  • Soulstone: A carved stone plinth rises from the floor in the center of the chamber. It is intricately carved to resemble some kind of tower, with waves crashing at its base. Little nooks and crannies are found across its surface, and these seem to change occasionally. Looking within suggests that the tower houses the bones of a strange, sinuous, winged lizard-like creature, although those bones are always just beyond the reach of fingers within the plinth. At its top, there sits an old glass lantern, Moroccan-style, with its glass panels made of fine stained glass in red, purple, and black panels. It sheds a wan, ghostly light on the room, and cannot be removed from the plinth. Those with Death 2 and Matter 2 can tell there is a Mystery attached to the soulstone (the Apprentice Mystery of the Cenotaph).
  • Tass: Tass accumulates as small winking gemstones can occasionally be found on the work table or balanced on gate crossbars.