Location Dossier
Location Tier Bastion of Darkness, Sovereign Undead Citadel & Fiendish Temple Complex Location Summit of the highest ridge in the Necropolis, northern heights of Ptolus Dominant Powers The Forsaken (Intelligent Undead Cabal) & The Fallen (Demonic Cult & Fiend-Worshipers) Key Master Vamal Shard (High Necromancer & Elder Voice of the Forsaken) Architecture Jagged black volcanic basalt, iron gargoyles, weeping obsidian buttresses, and warded lead roof-spires Status Autonomous sovereign sanctuary within the city of the dead; unassailed by the City Watch due to mutually assured destruction
🏛️ Overview: The Obsidian Citadel of Shadow
The Dark Reliquary is the blasphemous monumental cathedral rising like a jagged black tooth above the foggy hills of the Necropolis. Perched upon the highest cemetery ridge, its looming silhouette and twisted iron spires form a dark, mocking counterpoint to the golden domes of the Cathedral of the First Radiance across the bay.
Built centuries ago during a dark epoch of imperial decadence over an ancient planar rupture, the Dark Reliquary is constructed from seamless blocks of volcanic basalt and mortar mixed with blood and bone-ash. The stone itself absorbs light, causing lanterns and torches brought within fifty paces to flicker with dim, sickening violet flames.
Within these unholy halls, two sinister factions maintain an uneasy joint sovereignty:
- The Forsaken: The high council of Ptolus’s intelligent undead—vampire lords, ancient wights, mummies, and living necromancers led by Vamal Shard. They treat the cathedral as their embassy, court, and daytime sanctuary.
- The Fallen: Fanatical demonologists, tiefling warlocks, and chaos priests who maintain blood-altars in the lower nave, conducting dark liturgies dedicated to demon lords and the primordial lords of entropy.
Despite periodic demands from hardline zealots in The Inquisitorial Synod and the Order of the Dawn to burn the cathedral to the ground, Commissar Igor Urnst and Prince Kirian Ylestos have enforced an uneasy, pragmatically enforced truce: so long as the masters of the Reliquary keep their legions within the walls of the Necropolis and refrain from wholesale slaughter of citizens, the city will not launch a cataclysmic crusade that could level half of Ptolus.
🏰 Interior Layout & Sanctums
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ The Obsidian Spire │
│ (High Ritual Sanctum) │
└────────────────┬────────────────┘
│
┌──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ The Nave of Shadows │ │ The Void Sacristy │ │ The Subterranean Vaults │
│ • Blood-Basalt Altars │ │ • Necromantic Relics │ │ • Vampire Sarcophagi │
│ • Demonic Rites of Fallen │ │ • Laboratory of Vamal Shard │ │ • Warded Mummy Crypts │
│ • Obsidian Pews & Fonts │ │ • Black-Market Phylacteries │ │ • Planar Rupture Well │
└──────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────┘
- The Nave of Shadows: A massive, vaulted cathedral chamber supported by sixteen pillars carved in the likeness of shrieking damned souls. The air is frigid enough to frost breath, smelling of embalming myrrh and brimstone. At the apse stands the Altar of the Broken Star, where the Fallen make bloody sacrifices.
- The Void Sacristy: The private sanctum and library of Vamal Shard. Shelves line the room, containing scrolls penned on human skin, ancient spellbooks salvaged from Dwarvenhearth, and glass jars holding glowing souls extracted from the dying.
- The Sarcophagus Undercrypts: Delving five subterranean tiers deep into the northern bedrock, these cold, iron-lined chambers house the resting coffins of the city’s ancient vampire aristocrats and dormant mummies, protected by lethal necrotic death-wards.
- The Planar Well: At the lowest point beneath the cathedral lies a circular shaft dropping into an abyss of roiling void energy. It is believed this shaft taps directly into ancient fault lines running toward the Banewarrens, allowing negative planar entities to bleed into the world.
⚔️ Pathfinder 2e Remaster Mechanics
Environmental Features of the Dark Reliquary
- Greater Void Conduit: Any creature that casts a spell with the Void or Death trait inside the cathedral increases the spell’s rank by 1 (up to the caster’s maximum spell rank). Spells with the Vitality trait require a DC 24 flat check or they are disrupted.
- The Dread Aegis: The structure is protected by an ancient abjuration ward. Teleportation into or out of the cathedral is completely blocked unless the caster possesses an Obsidian Reliquary Sigil.
- Desecrated Ground: Holy creatures (such as Paladins, Clerics of Light, and Celestials) are Enfeebled 1 and Frightened 1 while inside the cathedral; these conditions cannot be reduced while within the structure.
🧭 Story Hooks for Adventurers
- The Stolen Corpse of the Paladin: The body of a revered knight of the Order of the Dawn falls in battle and is stolen from the mortuary before funerary rites can be completed. His weeping squires hire the party to breach the lower crypts of the Dark Reliquary to rescue the corpse before the Forsaken transform him into an unholy graveknight.
- The Diplomatic Envoy to the Dead: When a rash of bizarre murders strikes the Nobles’ Quarter, Commissar Igor Urnst sends the party as neutral emissaries to the Dark Reliquary to demand answers from Vamal Shard, suspecting a rogue vampire is violating the city’s century-old treaty.
- The Banewarren Syphon: The party discovers that the high priests of the Fallen are using a chaositech conduit rooted in the cathedral’s subterranean well to siphon dark magic directly from the broken threshold of the Banewarrens, planning to summon a primordial void monstrosity during the Night of Dissolution.