The Listening Floor
The Listening Floor
Read aloud
Hundreds of black-glass horns rise from the plain, each aimed at a different point in a sky that is not there. Ahead, one amber lamp burns inside a ring of salvaged ships. Ragnhild Black-Rail calls from behind the sealed gate: “Make us hear you, then we’ll decide whether to open.”
Run the session
Cheat sheet
Objectives
- 1Convince the Still Watch to admit the party and share what it has recorded.
- 2Read the horn-field in order and determine what can be heard between the pulse and its answer.
- 3Keep the relay team from taking the Station’s records and its former scribe.
- 4Seek a fragment of insight from the Station’s strange listener.Optional
The clock
The Absolute relay team arrives at dusk, or immediately after a failed hearing. A failed hearing costs a day before the Station opens; treat the approaching team as the pressure on that delay, not as an unexplained second deadline.
Scenes
- 0:00An Unfamiliar Bell
- 0:45The Hearing
- 1:20Low, Mid, High
- 2:35The Gatehouse at Dusk
- 4:05The Log Leaves the Floor
Cast
- Siphon-Matron Ragnhild Black-RailQuestgiver and ally
- SirriWitness and ally
- Odd ValeWitness and target
- The Kindly OneWildcard
The hook
Set the scene
Black glass crunches softly beneath the party’s boots. Hundreds of horn-shaped swells rise around them, each tall as a ship’s mast, their points aimed at places in the empty sky. On a low rise, Hollow Ear Station forms a dark ring of salvaged hulls around a squat gatehouse. Its single amber lamp stains the glass with a thin stripe of gold. At the gate, Ragnhild Black-Rail listens without moving. “We are not neutral,” she says. “We are late. Let us hear what you brought.”
How Siphon-Matron Ragnhild Black-Rail asks
Ragnhild meets the party at the closed gate with a pair of silent sentries.
She asks them to be heard before she will consider opening the Station, and makes clear that the Still Watch cannot afford to mistake another faction’s instrument for a friend.
Rumours
Scenes
about 4.5 hours0:00
45 min
socialThe table is here
1. An Unfamiliar Bell
The approach to Hollow Ear Station, with a closed hull gate, black-glass ridges, and one amber lamp.
Introduce the horn-field’s impossible scale and make the Station’s sealed gate the immediate obstacle. Ragnhild explains that the Still Watch must hear the party before deciding whether to admit it. A character can begin the hearing by naming the count without being asked, showing the Unbanked Ember kept low and unlit, matching the three-short, one-long rhythm for the Kindly One, or offering to carry the Still Watch’s log somewhere safe.
NextAs Ragnhild weighs the party’s last words, a listener carries a copy of the Floor Log from the gatehouse, and the black horns begin to answer the sound of the page turning.
0:45
35 min
social
2. The Hearing
The gate and the gatehouse threshold, where the Still Watch listens from behind patched hull plates.
Run the hearing as a challenge: the party needs three successes before two failures. The four listed approaches are Insight or Religion to name the count; Persuasion to show the Ember kept low and unlit; Performance to sing, tap, or hum the rhythm to the Kindly One; and Persuasion to offer to take the log somewhere safe. Allow a character to describe another convincing approach and set a comparable DC. On success, the gate opens, Ragnhild shares the Floor Log, and the Kindly One answers one question with a song fragment. On failure, the gate remains shut for a day and the relay team arrives during the delay.
NextWhen the gate yields, the amber lamp spills across the threshold and Sirri leads the party out among the horns, where the count can be tested against the plain itself.
1:20
75 min
exploration
3. Low, Mid, High
The black-glass horn-field outside the Station, where hundreds of swells point into the absent sky.
Tune the horns in order. Low: Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Arcana) reveals the pulse, three short beats, one long beat, then silence. Mid: Charisma (Performance) or Intelligence (Investigation) reveals an answer arriving half a beat late. High: Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Arcana) reveals a third rhythm between the two, neither echo nor reply. This is a group challenge in which three characters each take one tuning once. Each failed tuning causes a horn-scream: Constitution save, thunder damage on a failure, half damage on a success, and deafened until the end of the character’s next turn on a failed save. Three successful tunings tick Heard box 6. Two successes let the party hear the third rhythm without knowing where it comes from. With fewer than two, Odd Vale and Sirri finish, but the Still Watch holds the knowledge.
NextThe last note travels across the glass and thins into silence; from the direction of the Station, a lookout calls that shapes are crossing the plain at dusk.
2:35
90 min
combat
4. The Gatehouse at Dusk
Hollow Ear Station’s gatehouse, with hull walls, a central lamp, full-cover horns, west and east doors, and an atrium door leading to the Kindly One.
The relay team attacks at dusk, or immediately if the hearing failed. Its goal is to seize the Floor Log and Odd Vale. The Hearth-Quencher comes through the gate and feeds on the lamp. The Vent-Glass Colossus enters through the east door and holds the doorway as a wall. The Siphon-Wardens position themselves by horns to exploit their screams. Odd Vale hides beneath the lamp. If asked, the Kindly One joins the party’s side for one round, using its Legendary Resistance for allies only. The encounter is a defense with a clear alternative to killing every attacker: secure the Log and Odd Vale, then force the relay team to retreat or negotiate.
NextWhen the last attacker breaks away or falls, the lamp’s amber glow steadies, and Ragnhild takes the Floor Log in both hands before leading the party toward the low rise at the center of the horn-field.
4:05
30 min
social
5. The Log Leaves the Floor
The threshold of the flooded atrium, where the Kindly One’s low song can be heard through the open door.
Resolve the party’s access to the Log, the Still Watch’s losses, and the tuning result. Ragnhild admits the Station hears something wrong at the center of the horn-field, in a chamber the founders called the Under-Horn, and says someone has been tuning it. Establish whether the party carries the Log onward and whether the Still Watch keeps the third-rhythm knowledge.
NextRagnhild seals the Log against the cold, and the party sets out across the glass as the horns begin to tremble behind them.
Behind it
What people believe
The Still Watch abandoned the Vanguard and the Absolute to tend Hollow Ear Station on the black-glass plain.
They will not open their gate to an unfamiliar bell. Earn the confidence of Siphon-Matron Ragnhild Black-Rail, help the listeners read the horn-field, and keep an approaching Absolute relay team from seizing the Station’s records and one of its people.
Background
The Listening Floor is a plain of black glass, ribbed by hundreds of immense horn-shaped swells aimed at a sky that is not there.
Hollow Ear Station, a ring of salvaged hulls around a squat gatehouse, shelters the Still Watch: nineteen listeners who abandoned the Vanguard and the Absolute to keep the Ear for no one. The party arrives carrying the Unbanked Ember and evidence of a pulse that forms a count. The Station’s people have heard more than one rhythm in the Floor, but they will not share what they know with an unfamiliar bell.
The stakes
If the relay team takes the Floor Log and Odd Vale, the Still Watch loses its best record of the rhythms and its last complete copy of Sirri’s hum.
If the Station falls, nineteen listeners are scattered and the Under-Horn is left guarded. If the party secures the Log and completes the tunings, it can carry valuable evidence onward without resolving who or what is answering the count.
Encounters
1The Gatehouse at Dusk
Combat
A compact gatehouse assembled from salvaged hulls, with narrow approaches, hull walls, two gates, a central amber lamp, four 10-foot horns that provide full cover, and a door to the flooded atrium. The Colossus enters through the east door and can hold the doorway. Odd Vale hides beneath the lamp.
Foes
Hearth-Quencher (CR 12; 8,400 XP)
Vent-Glass Colossus (CR 12; 8,400 XP)
2 Vanguard Siphon-Wardens (CR 6 each; 4,600 XP total)
ComplicationOn initiative count 20, one horn screams. Each creature within 20 feet makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or takes 4d6 thunder damage, half on a success; a creature that fails is deafened until the end of its next turn. A creature next to a horn can use an action and succeed on a DC 18 Strength (Athletics) check to muffle it for 3 rounds. Horns provide full cover and are 10 feet tall.
ScalingThe supplied total is 24,520 XP including the horn-scream hazard, listed as Moderate for four level-15 characters. For three characters, remove one Siphon-Warden. For five, add a pair of Void-Ice Legionnaires (1,400 XP total). The encounter assumes the listed creature statistics are available to the GM; use the Siphon-Warden stat block from Book 2, Appendix A. The Hearth-Quencher and Vent-Glass Colossus are named adversaries from the supplied encounter, not newly defined official 5E stat blocks.
Cast
4Siphon-Matron Ragnhild Black-Rail
QuestgiverQuestgiver and ally
WantsKeep the Still Watch alive and prevent the Absolute from taking the Floor Log or Odd Vale. She wants the party to understand the danger without turning the Station into a faction’s instrument.
“We are not neutral. We are late.”
Sirri
Witness and ally
WantsMake sense of the count she can hum back to anyone who stands still. She is unsettled by the comfort it gives her and hopes the party can hear what she cannot explain.
“Three short, one long. It feels like being told to keep breathing.”
Odd Vale
Witness and target
WantsPreserve his copies of the rhythm and keep the Floor Log from the Absolute. He fears that if he stops recording, an important distinction will vanish.
“I have written the same three beats four hundred times. They never come out the same.”
The Kindly One
Wildcard
WantsKeep its own count and observe the others. It communicates in low song, offers one brief song fragment in response to a question, and does not explain its words.
“Three are counting now.”
How it ends
Rewards
Items
The Floor Log, if the party earns Ragnhild’s trust and secures it during the attack. Its last page contains Sirri’s hum, the only complete copy of the third rhythm.
On a win
If Hollow Ear Station survives, Ragnhild shares the Floor Log and grants the party +1 Standing with the Still Watch, or a Favor if the party has no Standing there.
The Kindly One answers one question with a song fragment after a successful hearing. Record the result of each tuning distinctly: three successes tick Heard box 6, two mean the party hears the third rhythm without knowing its source, and fewer than two mean Odd Vale and Sirri complete the work while the Still Watch keeps the knowledge. After the Station is secured, Ragnhild directs the party toward the Under-Horn, and the next leg begins as the party carries the log away from the amber-lit gate.
What it leaves open
If it fails
- The party records two failures before earning three successes in the hearing.
- The Station gate stays closed for a day. The Absolute relay team arrives while the party waits, and the Gatehouse at Dusk begins with Hollow Ear Station under siege. The party can still defend the Station and earn Ragnhild’s trust through its actions.
- The party fails to protect Odd Vale during the attack.
- If Odd Vale dies during the gatehouse attack, the Floor Log loses its last page, which holds Sirri’s hum, the only complete copy of the third rhythm. The party can still learn from the horn-field, but cannot recover that complete written record in this adventure.
- The party leaves Hollow Ear Station undefended when the relay team attacks.
- If the party skips the gatehouse fight, the Station falls, the Still Watch scatters, and the Under-Horn is guarded. Ragnhild’s trust and the Station’s Favor are lost unless the party later undertakes a rescue or recovery effort.
- The party fails at two or more of the three tuning checks.
- If fewer than two tunings succeed, Odd Vale and Sirri complete the work for the party. The Still Watch keeps the knowledge; the party does not earn the Third Rhythm Heard mark from this attempt.
Complications (d6)
- 1A glass ridge rings underfoot. Until the end of the next round, creatures within 20 feet have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
- 2A crosswind skates loose black-glass grit across the listening site. The next character to make a tuning check must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 slashing damage; the check still proceeds.
- 3A Station sentry mistakes a party member’s tapping for an Absolute signal. The character must spend an action to clarify the pattern with a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check or lose the next opportunity to contribute to the hearing.
- 4A horn-scream sounds prematurely. Each creature within 20 feet makes a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 4d6 thunder damage on a failure or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is deafened until the end of its next turn.
- 5The amber lamp gutters. Ragnhild orders the gate barred until it is relit; a character can restore it with an action and a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) or Dexterity check using tinker's tools.
- 6Sirri hums a phrase that draws the attention of the Kindly One. The next character who addresses it can gain advantage on one hearing or tuning check by matching her cadence, but must describe how they do so.
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