Wacky/Fun/Scary things to populate an Atlantean ruin

[Katana1515]

Coming up with some ideas for an upcoming arc of my Mage game. I have 5 players (one of each path) so coming up with intriguing challenges can be a task. I was hoping you wise ones here on the forums could share your cool idea's for traps, puzzles, mysteries and monsters that I could incorporate into the next few sessions.

My players should stay out of this thread at all costs. You know who you are!

[Vent0]

For some reason, I keep thinking of bombing them with some hallucinatory distraction - of something as banal as VR "Spam" or commercials, but from whatever Time Before the ruin hails from.

[Aurelius]

Have you read Secrets of the Ruined Temple?

[Katana1515]

I don't have access to that one unfortunately. I totally forgot it existed actually! Will see what I can do to get my hands on it. Any original ideas, or parts of that book that you would want to recommend would be awesome too.

[Teatime]

A chamber of looped time, strained under the pressure of Paradox. Postcognition reveals that whatever the characters do has been done an infinite number of times. Solving the riddle contained in the room offers a clue that's vital to solving that riddle - like a key to a lock being hidden behind that very lock. The characters must realize they need to look for a solution left by their previous iteration, and leave a solution for their next iteration.

Like this.

If they make any sort of mistake, the chamber gives way to the Abyss. For instance: if they stay too long, they will bump into their time copies. If they have two keys and bury the wrong one, each becomes an Abyssal object. If they get information through the Time Arcanum and don't make it come true... go nuts.

[Mordred9971]

Personally I've always be a fan of the "Defeat yourself" puzzle. Whatever Temple the players are trying to infiltrate. The players characters have warded and are defending to the best of their abilities.

[Vent0]

Creature battle. The PCs need to define a creature using obscure phrasing in the High Speech. Life magic creates it and it battles another guardian creature. Issuing commands via Mind Arcana is optional, though recommended. Direct magic use on the opponent is (virtually) impossible.

If they get fond of it you could even let them keep it as a pet (mind Dissonance, though). Or if you are feeling cruel, kill it off.

[Teatime]

As for creatures, here's one I really like. It was written with D20 in mind, but it's easy to translate into CofD:

Nobodies

[21C Hermit]

Scriptures, prayers, idols and murals exalting the glories of the Abyss. Which, as far as the mages know, shouldn’t have even existed back then.

Proof that small critters resembling lab mice were the sapient dominant speicies of the world. They harness advanced biotechnology where they use huge (for them) modified animals as vehicles and housing. Those augmented animals look disturbingly human.

Seeing from the 1st-person perspectives of ten people who are apparently amidst some grand turmoil in a city of an advanced civilization. They speak High Speech fluently, and while the words are alien, the mages keep hearing one phrase crystal clear; the Celestial Ladder.

[thenate]

A couple notions:

A map room with maps of the world in various ages including this one. The only active spells are protections. Somebody predicted everything. Seems the future is bleak or really weird, one.


A temple extolling the glories of ascendant man. It praises challenging one's self and respecting the sacred. It praises the benefits of careful checks and balances provided by communal watchfulness. Inviting strangers in after carefully vetting them is recommended. In other words, it praises the lessons of each path and order, largely intact, but also the just versions of the ideals that the Exarch tyranny corrupts.


A beautiful room contains a table and complete furnishings for a full high tea. The place is immaculate and smells like spring. A few water bowls in the corner sit next to a rack of clean towels. Examination reveals matter effects on these items. Spells that reveal such things indicate that the entire room is a powerful demesne. The object in it seem to be a form of tass. There are life and mind effects active in the area and woven into the foods and drinks. A radiant woman beckons if the team peeks inside the room and rises from her comfortable chair when they enter. She bids them come and eat and tell her of their journeys.


The mages find a door that looks like one of theirs. It opens into the appropriate room. That door no longer opens back up into the proper location, but back into that ruin. (without using Space magic, anyway.) (Options: A. Those who enter the door from the normal far side can exit normally, while the others exit to the ruin. B. Visitors marked by the ruin simply cannot use the door normally, any longer, or may need to activate spatial senses to choose the normal path. C. The ruin simply connects to the portal, and the previous location doesn't. The former far side of the portal ceases to be such.)