Chicken Farrier

Secret Santicorn 2025 - The Tower of Day & Night

"There's something strange about that place..." - Adventurer, blind

To all those who celebrate, Merry Christmas and Happy Gregorian New Year! Whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it brings you closer to those around you and offers you time to reflect. My Secret Santicorn prompt is from Katt Kirsch: "4-6 interlinked little noncombat dungeon puzzles to put on different floors of a dungeon." Puzzles are infamous for being difficult to pull off in TTRPGs, but below is my attempt. Please feel free to carve, gut, and otherwise alter the content below. (This is always true, but bears repeating.)

The tower was constructed at some time in your dungeon's history as an experiment/tribute/joke. The origin of the light comes from the magic mirror on Floor 1. The magic is focused by gems set in the floor, gaining increasingly powerful qualities as the light is focused repeatedly.

Magic Mirror Projecting Day Effects:

0 Gems: Simple daylight.

1 Gem: The light will be brighter than a torch! If reflected off of something, any rooms the beam of light is shown into/through will be lit up, within reason of course. The light has a supernatural quality, and tends not to dissipate even when reflected over long distances. If shown into the eyes of a creature, it is as disorienting as staring at the sun.

2 Gems: The beam is not bright enough to start fires with over a minute of exposure. Shining it into the eyes of a creature will inflict temporary blindness.

3 Gems: The beam burns! Any room the beam is shot through rapidly heats up. Not to lethal levels (at least for most man-sized creatures) but hot enough for discomfort. Whatever the light is shown on will heat up rapidly, a dungeon turn's of exposure can soften metals. This can cause permanent blindness with repeat exposure.

4 Gems: The light is not hot enough to melt through dungeon walls in a dungeon turn (although this will cause instability in the structure, and may cause unwanted attention). Blindness is now less of a concern than lethality.

5 Gems: The light is now totally room temperature, but shines with a godly light. Cater this to the gems used, the dungeon at hand, and the world's metaphysical truths.

Magic Mirror Projecting Night Effects:

0 Gems: Simple moonlight.

1 Gem: Pale blue beams leak from the ceiling. If reflected, these beams provide approximately candlelight. However, if the beams are directed onto any source of light, the light will be snuffed out. The snuffing will be permanent in the case of non-magical lights, and temporary for magically fuelled light sources. If shown directly into the eyes of a creature, the creature will experience blindness for as long as the beams.

2 Gems: When the beam terminates in a room, the room is totally bathed in an unnatural darkness, all lights are snuffed. There is a ghostly chill that follows the beam.

3 Gems: The beam causes shadows to grow and dims any light that is adjacent to it. When terminating on a creature, the beam causes frostbite in a dungeon turn.

4 Gems: Shadows writhe. In the presence of the beam, shadows will begin to move and seek out sources of light to cover. Frost follows the beam's trail.

5 Gems: Directing this beam at a creature causes its shadow to be ripped from its form. Deadly freezing often follows.

Floor 1 - The Sky Chamber

An ovoid silver mirror lies flush with the ceiling. Instead of reflecting what lies beneath, it shows the unchanging image of a blue sky, the sun at the center. Below the mirror, slotting into the floor, lies a red gem, glowing with the light of day/night respectively. Offset from the mirror and gem as not to block either, is an axle that hangs from the ceiling, with large spokes jutting out from the bottom, parallel with the floor. Turning the machine causes the mirror to project a moonlight night instead of a sunny day, or vice versa. If the mirror is removed from its spot on the ceiling, it will be stuck on whatever it last showed.

Floor 2 - Lights

Beams of light spill from a hole in the ceiling. A mirror is propped against an ancient weapon, reflecting the above beam through an adjacent door. A cracked gem sits in a slot in the floor.

Floor 3 - Blinding Beams

Beams of light spill from a hole in the ceiling. There is an empty port on the ground, sized for a gem. If the gem on Floor 2 remains cracked: Beams of light fly wildly in multitudinous directions. The effects of the beam cannot be directed, and will affect the room randomly.

Floor 4 - Reflection

Beams of light spill from a hole in the ceiling. There is an empty port on the ground, sized for a gem. The doors to this room are covered in sheets of tarnished silver, only on the inside.

Floor 5 - Containment

Beams of light spill from a hole in the ceiling. There is an expertly carved, but otherwise useless, gem-shaped stone sitting in the floor. The doors to this room are covered in a heavy black felt, consuming an unnatural amount of light, only in the inside.

Floor 6 - Tomb

Beams of light spill from a hole in the ceiling. Heavy stone doors to this room, covered in warding glyphs. The floor under the final port in the ceiling forms a large stone bowl. The room is otherwise featureless.

Some Notes