20. Futile Refuge

The door to this room is spiked from the inside; rolls to force the door are made on 1d8 rather than 1d6, to represent the difficulty in opening it. Once it is open: Opening the door releases an awful smell of death, making you gag and choke. Any character wishing to enter the room must save vs. Poison to do so; failure results in vomiting, and the character suffers -2 on attack rolls and saving throws for 1d4 rounds. Inside the room you see a corpse lying in the far corner. Three spikes are scattered on the floor in front of the door, thrown there when you forced it open; an ordinary hammer lies forgotten beside the doorway. Investigating the corpse: The body appears to be that of a small- framed human wearing bloodstained leather armor. The body is badly decomposed such that you cannot tell if it is male or female. A backpack and a waterskin lie on the floor at its right hand, and a shortsword, dagger, and burned-out torch are discarded to its left. None of this equipment is magical, but the dagger is a standard silver dagger. The waterskin is empty. If the backpack is opened: This poor unfortunate's pack contains a leather-wrapped set of thieves' tools, a tinderbox, cloth wrappings that probably once contained rations, a small silver mirror, and a coil of silk rope. All the equipment is as serviceable as described, though the leather armor will always smell of decay and corruption. Removing the body and returning it to town for proper burial results in 200 XP bestowed on each character as a gift from the gods.