Connects to 16.20, 18.20, 25.18 and 44.19.
This flooded quarry looks innocuous, but adventurers who moor a boat at a certain crevasse on the southeastern face and step inside can explore a truly bizarre temple complex.
The Inverted Temple’s altars, pews, idols and shrines are carved into the complex’s high ceilings. Most of the floor is flooded in two to three feet of water. Some speculate that it was a sort of ecumenical temple because of the multitude of animal-headed idols. Jarringly, statues resembling The Green Lady, Tiamat or Alberon have been spotted among the strange gods. Animal and humanoid skeletons lie underwater. Sometimes moldering bits of bone poke through the murky surface. Enterprising delvers can pry bits of jewelry or handfuls of coin from the skeletons.
The temple’s inhabitants, manta ray-like creatures that scuttle across the temple ceiling with their long clawed fingers, have deterred thorough explorations. They attack in great swarms, descending from above and impaling intruders with their poisonous barbed tails. Their flat faces have uncannily human features.
The manta creatures are the feral ancestors of the cult that once used certain great stone jars (16.20). Through use of the rain water rituals, the creatures were able to take human form and roam the world. Their predecessors built this temple complex, but for reasons long forgotten.
Connection:
- The abundance of skeletons is due to an expedition into the temple by Yaegha Six-Kidneys (25.18).
Hooks:
- What do the manta creatures eat, besides the occasional interloper?
- One of the most notorious tales from the complex involves a tangled mass of skeletons rising from the pool and chasing away a manta swarm. The witnesses fled too after it took one of its own.
- There are rumors that a library of esoteric lore exists in the complex. It is, of course, inverted.
- The remnants of the Foolish Sages (20.18) will pay to have the Inverted Temple mapped so that it may be properly explored when they have recovered from the Black Ziggurat fiasco.
- An ancient map suggests the Inverted Temple lies at the intersection of two elemental ley lines - water and earth, specifically. If the map is accurate, then there must be a point in the complex where a knowledgeable arcanist can tap into elemental secrets (44.19).
