Level 10 - Trophy Gallery

Updated

Overview

The final floor of Seylon's Tower. A grand circular gallery showcasing Seylon's collection of magical trophies — weapons, armor, taxidermy creatures, and mounted heads arranged around the room like a wizard's private museum. A raised central pedestal dominates the space, crowned by an enormous stuffed purple worm. A desk on the western wall holds an open book.

Everything here looks impressive. Almost none of it is real.

Room Layout

Perimeter (clockwise from north)

  1. Mace in a display case — ornate, jeweled handle
  2. Suit of armor / statue — full plate, ceremonial style, holding a halberd
  3. Sword in a display case — longsword with rune-etched blade
  4. Large display case — contains crossed swords, a golden feather, and several cut gemstones on velvet
  5. Crown on a pedestal — silver circlet with a large sapphire
  6. Taxidermy animals (three, standing):
    • A wolf — posed mid-snarl
    • A displacer beast — tentacles raised, frozen in attack posture
    • A unicorn — standing peacefully, horn intact and faintly luminous

Central Pedestal

Raised stone platform with steps on the south side. On top:

  • Giant stuffed purple worm — coiled in the center, enormous, mouth agape
  • Mounted creature heads around the pedestal edge (clockwise from north):
    • Red dragon
    • Tusked beast (boar or orc)
    • Lion
    • (south — stairs gap)
    • Purple beast (displacer beast or behir)
    • Blue dragon-like creature
    • Another lion

Western Wall

Desk with an open book — Seylon's trophy catalogue. Lists each item with a brief description and provenance. This is the key to the room's puzzle.

The Trick: Everything Is Fake

Almost every trophy in this room is an illusion or mundane replica. Seylon was many things — brilliant, obsessed, dangerous — but he was also vain. He filled this gallery with impressive-looking fakes to impress the students he recruited.

DC 13 Investigation or Arcana (per item examined): Reveals the item is an illusion, a mundane replica, or an enchanted fake. The gemstones are colored glass. The dragon heads are painted plaster over wooden frames. The purple worm is stuffed canvas and wire. The armor is tin.

DC 10 if touching: Physical contact immediately reveals something feels wrong — too light, too smooth, slightly translucent at the edges.

What the book reveals: Seylon's trophy catalogue lists provenance for each item — and a careful reader (DC 12 Investigation) notices the descriptions are suspiciously vague. Entries like "Acquired from a merchant of some repute" and "Won in a duel of considerable skill" read more like fiction than fact. One margin note in Seylon's hand reads: "The children need not know the difference. Inspiration is more valuable than authenticity."

The One Real Thing

The unicorn horn on the taxidermy unicorn is genuine.

Clues

The unicorn stands out from the other taxidermy in subtle ways:

  1. The horn glows faintly — DC 10 Perception. While the wolf and displacer beast look dusty and stiff, the unicorn's horn catches light in a way that seems too natural. A faint silver luminescence, especially visible in dim light.

  2. The catalogue entry (desk book): Most entries are vague and boastful. The unicorn's entry is different — reverent, specific, and personal:

    "The horn was freely given, not taken. She came to Lyra in the forest when Lyra was seven. The unicorn bowed its head and allowed the child to touch it. When it shed this horn the following spring, Lyra brought it to me. 'For your collection, Daddy.' I will never part with it."

    DC 12 Insight: This is the only entry that mentions Lyra. It's the only item Seylon actually cared about.

  3. The grimoire from Level 9 mentioned serpent alchemy and the quest to reverse death. A note in the desk book echoes this:

    "Unicorn blood sustains life even at the threshold of death. The horn carries that same essence in crystallized form. It is the one material I have never dared to use in my experiments — it was hers, not mine."

  4. Nature or Arcana DC 13: Unicorn horns are known to have powerful restorative and protective properties. In alchemical tradition, they are associated with purity and the preservation of life — the opposite of the dark arts Seylon was pursuing elsewhere in the tower.

The Portkey

When someone touches or removes the unicorn horn, it activates as a Portkey.

Where it goes: The Hidden Library — Seylon's hidden personal archive, located outside the tower entirely.

The activation: The horn glows brighter, vibrates, and the familiar hook-behind-the-navel sensation of Portkey travel pulls whoever is touching it (and anyone in physical contact with that person) away.

DM Notes: The Portkey was Seylon's final failsafe — the horn was the one thing precious enough that only someone who truly understood his story would take it. It leads to wherever Seylon's ultimate work awaits, separate from the tower.

Encounter

There is no combat encounter on this level unless the party triggers one. The gallery is meant to feel like a victory lap — the final floor, the prize at the top. The tension comes from the realization that everything is fake, and the mystery of what's actually real.

Optional: If the party tries to take multiple fake items, the illusions could destabilize — shimmering, flickering, revealing the empty room beneath. The purple worm's canvas skin could split open dramatically, scattering dust. Play it for dark comedy rather than danger.

Treasure

  • Unicorn Horn (Portkey — see above). Before activation: worth 500 gp as a reagent component. Radiates abjuration magic (Detect Magic).
  • The rest is worthless replicas, though the party doesn't know that until they investigate.
  • The trophy catalogue itself is mildly valuable (25 gp) as a historical curiosity — it contains Seylon's handwriting and his note about Lyra and the unicorn.

Lore & Clues

The catalogue's Lyra entry is the emotional heart of this room. After ten floors of increasingly dark experiments, forbidden rituals, and tortured victims — the final floor contains a trophy room full of fakes and one real thing: a gift from his daughter. Seylon couldn't bring himself to use it. It's the one line he never crossed.

Connecting the dots:

  • Level 2 (Scrying Pools): Visions of Lyra as a child
  • Level 5 (Dragon Hatchery): "She used to ask for a dragon"
  • Level 7 (Child's Bedroom): Lyra's journal and the giant doll
  • Level 10 (Trophy Gallery): The horn she gave him — the only real thing he kept

Atmosphere

Dust motes drift in shafts of enchanted light. The trophies gleam — perhaps too perfectly. The purple worm looms overhead like a carnival attraction. The room feels less like a sanctum and more like a stage set. There's something sad about it — a brilliant wizard filling a room with lies to impress children he was exploiting. The only genuine thing in the room is a horn given by a dead girl to her father.