Standard Entry
Floor 0 (Brindol) | Hour 0 | Daylight, overcast | Bells silent | The North Road, at the gate
Far from any coast, a cathedral floats above an open chasm. Or so it seems.
It stands in the middle of Brindol, and it is the highest thing in the city — higher than the council houses, higher than the guildhalls, its spire the first thing you saw from the road and the last thing the light leaves. A city of corruption, crimes and cults, and the cathedral does no better. Under it, they say, Red Hoods — mages, warriors, or both — are conscripted to carry out the Bishop's ambitions. Around it: a children's guild, an assassins' guild, a thieves' guild, the mages' guild, a mercenary company. A burger restaurant.
You arrive at the gate. Someone is leaving through it.
An adventurer — or so you think. A heavy pack. Two ethereal arms, faint as breath on glass, hold what look like oriental sword hilts beneath it. A wizard's hat on top, with a tail hanging out of the back. A cat?
He does not slow down, but he talks.
Zack:
"Stay away from the cathedral. And the fighters' guild, and the children's guild, and the assassins' guild, and the government. They're all assholes. That city sucks."
Zack:
"I did leave a ton of treasure at the bottom of the chasm that holds the cathedral. All yours, if you can get to it. Something like a million gold."
He glances at you once.
Zack:
"Why won't I go get it? I don't need the money. You look like you do. Good luck."
Behind you, running, a wizard in purple robes, out of breath.
Wizard:
"Hey — Zack! Wait up!"
Zack speeds up. His hand moves. A gate opens in the road ahead of him — a standing ring of nothing with an edge like the horizon of a well — and he jumps through it. The wizard barely makes it, robes and all, a heartbeat before it closes.
Where it closed, the road is gone. The gate ate the ground and the cobbles and a slice of the gatehouse wall in a clean curve, and the hole is still smoking.
Spell circles open around the crater. One, three, seven — eight or nine mages, grey robes and the mages' guild sigil, stepping out of light into a ring around the hole. They read the ground. Then one of them looks up, and sees you.
A moment later a door of shadow opens beside you, and a mage steps through it, close enough to touch.
Mage:
"Who are you..."
[Tell the mage who you are and what you carry — a full 5e sheet, or just words. You come in around level 5; the world goes to 20, and most of what lives below is homebrew.]