Hello everybody.
I plan to send my PCs to Mercykillers Vault on Carceri. Unfortunately I don't own the Planes of Conflict box.
I'd be very grateful if somebody could point me out the rough size and features of the Vault. How many Mercykillers are stationed there?
Thanks a lot!
Thanks! That already helps me a lot.
Excerpt from Planes of Conflict:
The vault
Hearsay: Sigil's not big enough to hold all prisoners the Harmonium apprehends, and plenty of people would like to see a berk dissapear entirely from the streets of the Cage. That's why the three lawgiving factions created the Vault - it's a place for them to stash inconvenient prisoners and let 'em languish. No one on the street knows exactly where the Vault is, but it's a well-known chant around Sigil that this place exists.
Description: Run by a cutter name Staccato Thaman (Male Planar Tiefling, Fighter lvl. 8, LN). so named for it's lightning-fast command of his fighting stick, the Vault rests atop one of the Colothys peaks. The outside of the huge metal building is covered in razorvine, and razor shrubs blanket the land for a mile all around. It's entirely enclosed: only three windows mar de surface of the Vault.
Inside are only two groups: the prisoners and the guards. These prisoners have proven to be tooo much of a bother to keep held in Sigil's Prison. and anyone sent here can give up hope of leaving. The place has so far, proven to be escape-proof, and the guards have absolute power of life and death over the prisoners. They exercise this power with some frequency.
Some prisoners don't ever make it into Vault itself. Instead, these unlucky berks are taken to an auction and sold to fiends as Blood War fodder, or to the Malarites as targets for their hunts. Thaman himself is unaware of this scheme: it's being run by a small group of lawful evil Mercykillers, who figure this fate's more appropriate for troublemakers than simply locking them up. Thaman'd be outraged if this dark came up to light for two reasons: first, because the Mercykillers have undermined his authority with these actions; and second. because no one's cut him in for a piece of the profits.
Special Features: The only viable entrance into the Vault is through a two-way portal from the Prison in Sigil. If a body were to try entering through one of the windows. he'd likely find himself starring down about 20 crossbows. The guards pay more attention to the prisoners inside though, so a jailbreak might succeed if it came from the outside.
All the guards are members of the Harmonium of the Red Death. Anyone else visiting the place - well, they have two options: Live the rest of their lives in the vault, or die a dishonorable death among the razorvine.
Thanks a lot! I'm not quite sure if it is allowed to post direct excerpts from the books, though.
I'm really looking forward to use the Vault in my campaign. As I had my players investigate the disappearance of several orphans from the Gatehouse orphanage (the children are actually 'cleaning' the Vault as hinted in the Factols Manifesto) they already suspect that something is cooking on Carzeri.
Such excerpts and quotations are fair use in this situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
About the Vault, just a few additional advices that may help you on the layout and the adventure.
I saw the movie Escape Plan lately, was pretty good, gave me some inspiration. What are the main 3 factors of a successful jailbreak?
- Know the layout
- Know the guard routines
- Have outside help
Outside help that's your PC group. I would personally design the vault as a miniature version of Sigil's prison without all the PR stuff: Guard's quarters including dormatories, meeting room, mess hall, a gate room and Thaman's personal quarter. The windows are probably around there and would see in different directions. Their only use would be to see what's going on outside, there's always someone near them. No door to go in & out. There would be storage rooms to put stuff. Rows of jail cells well isolated from each others with steel walls, the prisoners don't communicate with each other. Of course never forget at least one torture room and an execution room. All the walls, ceilings and floors are made of metal. It's probably manned by 20-30 guards + Thaman.
Where does the Gate goes in Sigil? My best bet, the underground portion of the Prison. It would be natural for the prison to attract portals to the "prison plane". It's says in the Factol's Manifesto that the Cellars are filled with forgotten cells that house additional 8,000 more prisonners. Maybe a portion of them are in the vault... There would be also a portal to somewhere else in Colothys that would lead to a black market where prisoners are secretly sold off.
Anyway, just some advices. Wish your adventuring PCs good luck cracking this nut.
I haven't fleshed out the scenario yet.
Also depends on the composition of the party and which factions will be represented in it (our Cipher-PC would probably prefer a rather 'direct' approach 
)
Lot's of good advice again. I will incorporate that into the scenario.
There's very little about the inside. It's said to sit atop a peak in Colothys, be surrounded by fields of razorvine, have three tiny windows in an otherwise unbroken shell, and have enough soldiers inside that anyone who tries to get through one of the windows will be "facing down about 20 crossbows." The usual entrance and exit point is a portal from the Prison.