Opal’s Steps – Stepped Pyramid

The high priestess Adepphius Opal Dhall had this pyramid constructed primarily as a “folly”, a reminder that she had the clout to have these kinds of ridiculous structures built for no other reason than her say-so. The structure did eventually find use as tombs and memorial space, but even that was mostly to take advantage of the presence of the already-built stepped pyramid.

Entry to the structure is either from the second-highest tier of the structure where massive double doors open into it, or via a small gulley to the northeast of the structure that becomes a cave and then connects to the understructures before leading up to the pyramid proper. Entering from above has its own problems, as the first room contains a pair of porcullises that block access to the lower levels and that can only be opened from the level below.

On review, the notation of the top level isn’t the clearest – the stairwells lead down to the second level where they access the main north-south passage. The small alcoves on the second level contain the devices used to open and close the portcullises on the top level. From the second level you can go down either the western stairs to a small row of tombs and niches, or the eastern stairs down to the main hall below which in turn leads down to the understructures.

This map was inspired by a stepped pyramid we explored in our weekly Empire of the Petal Throne campaign that James Maliszewski has been running for 8 years now.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 12,000 pixels (40 squares) wide. To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the traditional 10′ squares) – so resizing the image to either 2,800 pixels wide or 5,600 pixels wide, respectively.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2023/03/15/opals-steps-stepped-pyramid/