Information
Location Tier Primordial Vault Megadungeon & Cosmic Containment Complex World Eraedal Geographic Depth Deep subterranean bedrock directly beneath Ptolus, between Dwarvenhearth and the roots of the Spire Architect Danar the Fair (The ancient paragon of light who later fell to corruption and became the Dark Lord) Original Purpose To permanently imprison, seal, and quarantine every irredeemable evil artifact, cursed bane, and reality-warping relic in existence Current State Breached (Outer seals cracked; contested by Delvers, Chaos Cults, Imperial Prelates, and Holy Knights) Primary Perils Seeping Chaotic Corruption, Ancient Warden Automa, Banes of Danar, Mutated Horrors, Spatial Distortion
🕳️ Overview: The Vault of World-Ending Banes
The Banewarrens is the most dangerous, horrific, and metaphysically volatile subterranean structure on Eraedal. Located thousands of feet beneath the cobblestones of Ptolus, deep in the living bedrock between the lost halls of Dwarvenhearth and the fathomless abyss where the Galchutt lie imprisoned, the Banewarrens was not built as a city, tomb, or treasury—it was engineered as a permanent, cosmic prison for evil itself.
Millennia ago, during the mythic antiquity that preceded the rise of the Western Empire, a towering champion of virtue named Danar the Fair resolved to cleanse the world of predatory darkness. Knowing that certain abominations, demonic talismans, and chaotic relics could not be destroyed without tearing the fabric of reality apart, Danar undertook a monumental task: he gathered every sentient curse, chaotic relic, and catastrophic bane across the continent and locked them inside an impregnable subterranean labyrinth forged from runed adamantine and warded with permanent celestial seals.
Tragically, Danar’s hubris proved his undoing. The accumulated psychic toxicity, hatred, and madness radiating from thousands of concentrated banes—mingled with the foul nightmare-ichor seeping up from the slumbering Galchutt—slowly eroded Danar’s sanity. Danar fell from the light, becoming the dreaded Dark Lord whose catastrophic war violently thrust the three-thousand-foot basalt needle of the Spire out of the earth before he was struck down.
For thousands of years, the sealed gates held. But in recent months, reckless subterranean excavations and delver tunneling inadvertently shattered the outer warded perimeter, triggering an apocalyptic crisis that threatens to consume Eraedal.
🗺️ The Subterranean Stratum & Layout
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Ptolus Surface Cobblestones │
└────────────────┬────────────────┘
│ (Sewer Wells & Fault Shafts)
┌────────────────▼────────────────┐
│ The Broken Threshold │
│ (Accidental Excavator Breach) │
└────────────────┬────────────────┘
│
┌─────────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌───────────────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────────────┐
│ The Warding Sanctum │ │ The Outer Vaults │ │ The Hall of the Banelords │
│ • Shattered Sealing Glyphs │ │ • Mutating Gas │ │ • The Eye & Hand Reliquaries │
│ • Quarn Keystone Sockets │ │ • Released Minor │ │ • Wuntad's Target Objectives │
│ • Chaos Spirit Key Portal │ │ Aberrations │ │ • Reality-Distortion Fields │
└───────────────────────────────┘ └─────────┬─────────┘ └───────────────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────▼────────────────┐
│ The Deep Inner Vaults │
│ • The Ultimate Sealed Banes │
│ • Seepage of the Galchutt Core │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
- The Broken Threshold: The ragged, dynamite-and-pickaxe breach blasted through the ceiling of an ancient subterranean conduit by unlucky excavators. The miners were instantly slaughtered by escaping horrors, leaving the rift leaking toxic, reality-bending spores into the Ptolus sewers.
- The Warding Sanctum: The primary security nexus designed by Danar. Anchored by the Quarn Keystones and massive circular runic iris-doors, it was built to remain permanently sealed. It is here that the Chaos Spirit Key—preserved by Calebrimbor from Pythoness House—serves as the critical interface required to either lock or permanently unseal the deeper wards.
- The Outer Vaults: A sprawling maze of basalt galleries lined with iron vault-boxes. Many containers have been cracked open over millennia of earth-tremors, leaking necrotic energy that has spawned bizarre, chimeric predators immune to conventional weaponry.
- The Hall of the Banelords: The terrifying inner ward housing the personal creations and tainted relics left behind by Danar’s fallen champions, including the fabled Hand of Danar and the Eye of the Banelord.
- The Deep Inner Vaults: The fathomless center, where the greatest cosmic banes are kept suspended in liquid stasis. Planar scholars fear that if this layer is breached, the dimensional tear will instantly awaken the Galchutt and trigger the Night of Dissolution.
⚔️ The Multi-Faction War for the Banes
The unsealing of the Banewarrens has ignited an invisible, desperate war beneath the city streets:
- Shigmaa Wuntad & The Chaos Cults: Wuntad seeks to penetrate the Hall of the Banelords to seize ancient chaotic relics, aiming to combine the Banelord power with the sound-engines of The Tolling Bell to shatter the physical cage holding the Old Gods.
- Holy Emperor Rehobath Ylestos & The Imperial Rite: Believing ancient imperial propaganda that Danar’s vaults contain primordial Azlanti holy weaponry belonging to Aroden, Rehobath has deployed elite inquisitors and high-level champions into the undercity to claim the banes, convinced they are divine instruments to reconquer Caer Itom in the Three-way Civil War.
- The Knights of the Golden Cross: The remnants of Danar’s ancient, uncorrupted chivalric order, led by High Preceptor Kalis Dru, fighting desperately to locate the original warding keys and reseal the breach forever.
- The Inverted Pyramid: Watching the rift with cold terror, arcane mages fear that the release of concentrated banes will cause an uncontrolled planar implosion beneath Ptolus.
- Lord Zavere & The Party: Recognizing that neither Rehobath nor Wuntad can be allowed to claim the banes, Castle Shard sponsors the adventurers to infiltrate the vaults, utilize the Chaos Spirit Key, and thwart the conspirators from within.
⚖️ Pathfinder 2e Remaster Environmental Hazards
The ambient aura of the Banewarrens twists reality and tests the sanity of all who enter:
- Bane Miasma (Aura, Curse, Occult): Within the deeper galleries, the air is thick with a shimmering violet-black haze. Living creatures must attempt a DC 26 Will save every hour. On a failure, they gain the Stupefied 1 condition (Stupefied 2 on a critical failure) as nightmarish whispers and visions of the Dark Lord flood their minds.
- Chaotic Ward Feedback: Divine spellcasters drawing power from lawful or holy deities suffer 2d6 mental damage whenever they cast a spell of 4th rank or higher within the Outer Vaults, as ancient broken sealing wards discharge chaotic static.
- Sealing Protocol (Runic Iris Gates): The adamantine blast gates require successful DC 32 Thievery or Occultism checks to manipulate—unless the operative possesses the Chaos Spirit Key, which allows immediate bypass or locking of any secondary iris portal without triggering trap discharges.