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The Choir's Stillwater - AI-generated fantasy Hazard

The Choir's Stillwater

The Choir's Stillwater is a complex curse spread through a stretch of river. It targets only inhabitants named in the cult's submerged ledger, including descendants recognized by the curse. When one of them drinks the water or enters it, the river marks them and draws them into an unbreakable sleep. They breathe normally and seem peaceful, but cannot be awakened by shaking, pain, ordinary healing, or removal from the water. The curse ends only through divine intervention or a successful divine ritual.

Hazards
Complex · Cursed · Level 100

The Choir's Stillwater

The Choir's Stillwater is a complex curse spread through a stretch of river.
Spot
100
Disable
110
AC
115

At a glance

Level
100
Complex
Spot DC
100

Defences

AC
115
Fort
105
Ref
100
Will
110
Hardness
50
HP
400
BT
200

Disable A creature must use divine magic or conduct a divine ritual to permanently disable the…

Initiative At the first sign of a named inhabitant touching or drinking the water

The hazard

The Choir's Stillwater is a complex curse spread through a stretch of river. It targets only inhabitants named in the cult's submerged ledger, including descendants recognized by the curse. When one of them drinks the water or enters it, the river marks them and draws them into an unbreakable sleep. They breathe normally and seem peaceful, but cannot be awakened by shaking, pain, ordinary healing, or removal from the water. The curse ends only through divine intervention or a successful divine ritual.

  • Complex
  • Cursed
  • Divine
  • Magical
  • Water
Stealth
to notice the submerged altar and bell-stones from the bank; to notice the hazard's supernatural script before it activates.
Trigger
A creature listed in the submerged ledger, or recognized by the cult's naming rite as a descendant, drinks from the river or enters its water. The hazard also reacts when such a creature comes within 30 feet of the drowned altar.
Disable
A creature must use divine magic or conduct a divine ritual to permanently disable the curse. A divine caster adjacent to a bell-stone can attempt a Religion check or a suitable divine skill check; three successes before two failures, with one check per round, silence that stone. Silencing all three disables the hazard. A divine ritual following the method in Countermeasures instead ends the curse and awakens all victims. Non-divine tampering can break a bell-stone, but does not lift the curse from sleepers.
Initiative
At the first sign of a named inhabitant touching or drinking the water, the river's script flares and the hazard rolls initiative with a +100 modifier.
Routine
On its initiative, the hazard causes the river to surge through a 1-mile stretch. Each marked target in the area is affected by Current of the Choir. Each named inhabitant who drinks from or enters the river is exposed to The River's Claim. The hazard can affect any number of eligible creatures in its area.
Reset
The hazard is always active. Its routine pauses if all three bell-stones are silenced or destroyed, but resumes at the next midnight unless the curse is ended by divine magic or a completed divine ritual.

Damage

Immunities
  • Critical hits
  • Precision damage
  • Sleep
  • Mental effects
  • Effects that target a living creature
Resistances
  • Physical damage 30, except damage dealt to a bell-stone by a creature wielding a consecrated weapon
Weaknesses
  • Consecrated weapons deal 20 additional damage to bell-stones.
  • If all three bell-stones are exposed to direct sunlight at once, the hazard cannot use its routine until the next midnight.

Effects

3

  • The River's Claim

    DC 110

    A targeted inhabitant who drinks from the river or enters it is marked by a cold blue sigil. The creature must attempt a Will save. On a failure, it falls unconscious and gains the Stillwater Sleep curse. On a critical failure, it falls unconscious with no save against the next pulse. On a success, it is marked and slowed 1 for 1 minute; on a critical success, it is unaffected.

  • Unbroken Sleep

    A creature with Stillwater Sleep cannot wake by any ordinary means, including damage, shaking, or magical healing. It remains alive, does not need food or water, and does not age. Only divine magic or a completed divine ritual described in Countermeasures ends the curse and awakens it.

  • Current of the Choir

    DC 110

    At the start of each routine, each marked target still in or beside the river must attempt a Fortitude save. On a failure, it is pulled up to 30 feet toward the altar and falls unconscious if not already asleep. On a critical failure, it is pulled up to 60 feet and the curse affects it even if it has not entered the water. On a success, it is pulled 10 feet; on a critical success, it is not moved.

Special rules

Named by the Ledger.The curse recognizes inhabitants listed in the submerged ledger and those the cult's naming rite would have counted as their descendants. It does not affect strangers merely for touching the water. The GM determines eligibility from the history of the settlement and the cult's rite.

The River Remembers.Sleepers remain alive and can be transported safely, but their condition does not improve with distance from the river. If a sleeper is carried back into the hazard's area, the river can pull them toward the altar during its routine.

Bell-Stones.The hazard has three bell-stones set around the altar. Each has AC 100, Hardness 50, and 100 HP. A bell-stone reduced to 0 HP is destroyed. Destroying or silencing all three stops the routine and prevents new applications of the curse, but does not awaken existing sleepers.

Spotting it

Discovery

A creature examining the water or altar can attempt a Perception or Religion check to notice the moving script and identify the hazard as a selective curse.

Perception

Stop it

Signs of dangerThe river carries whispers in the voices of people who have not yet been born. · Fish float belly-up but remain alive, their eyes closed and their gills moving slowly. · Names appear in condensation on dry stone, then vanish when read aloud. · People who sleep beside the river wake with damp hems and a faint blue mark on the tongue.

Countermeasures

In short

The curse can be ended only by divine magic or a divine ritual that breaks the cult's claim.

Its story

What it looks like

At low water, a ring of black river stones rises around a drowned altar.

Why it is here

To preserve the cult's chosen inhabitants from death by hiding them in an ageless, deathlike sleep until the river's patron calls them to wake.

Who made it

The drowned priests of the Choir Beneath, who bargained with a river power to preserve their chosen people from a prophesied war.

Lore

The Choir Beneath believed a prophecy foretold the extinction of their river people.

Where it is found

River

Variants

The Ledger of Borrowed Names targets anyone who has ever taken a name from a particular river village, regardless of ancestry.
The Red Current affects only the cult's enemies. Its victims dream of drowning and leave wet footprints wherever they are carried.
In the Pilgrim's Rest variant, the sleep is contagious only to members of the cult, and waking a sleeper requires the name of the priest who wrote their entry.

Plot hooks

A whole riverside settlement has fallen asleep after a flood changed the river's course. The party must find a divine authority willing to perform the awakening ritual.
The submerged ledger includes a prominent ally's name, but the entry is written in a hand that predates their birth.
A local ruler wants the hazard suppressed, not cured, because the sleeping victims are inconvenient witnesses to a treaty.
The altar's creator may have intended the curse as protection, and the river power offers to release the sleepers in exchange for a new list of names.

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