Gloaming Warrens

Stub-class article · First seen: s4 · Last seen: s7
Gloaming Warrens
the Gloaming Warrens
Portrait of Gloaming Warrens.
Location
StatusUnvisited
First seens4
Last seens7
FactionUmbrafall power structures

The Gloaming Warrens are, per the DM’s world brief, the deep fungal workings beneath Umbrafall that help keep the city alive (world brief). The party has entered one section of them: Maelis Dirn’s lair under the Black Hollow Market, which the DM called “the bottom warrens” of Umbrafall [6] and which the wiki maps as The Warrens. The party cleared that section in sessions 5 to 7, and the wider system has never been entered.

Overview

The Gloaming Warrens are, per the DM’s world brief, the deep fungal workings beneath Umbrafall that help keep the city alive (world brief). The brief says no more: no map, no keepers, no extent. The name “Gloaming” has not been said at the table.

In play the party entered one section of the workings, Maelis Dirn’s lair under the Black Hollow Market. The DM told them they had “entered the bottom warrens” of Umbrafall [6]. The wiki reads that lair as one section of the wider system and keeps its full account on The Warrens. The rest of the system has never been entered.

Geography and appearance

What the party saw of the workings was natural cave shored up with wooden pillars [7], lit dimly by bioluminescent algae and fungi [8], with biogloom seeped deep into the roots and foundations [9]. Spores drifted like snow [10], and magic of every kind soaked the place, so that Detect Magic could pick out nothing [11].

Layout

Only the section under the market has been mapped. The Warrens has the full account; these are its areas in brief.

  • Tunnel under the market. The way in. The tunnel “yawns wide”, with scratched runes catching violet light and pointing deeper in [10].
  • Rune path and hidden door. Caelumn’s Produce Flame set off the spores and burned the fungi from the walls, baring runes that led, one after another, to a hidden entrance [12][13][14].
  • Entry cave and side cavern. A natural cave held up by wooden pillars, opening into a bulbous side cavern pulsing violet, its floor slick and strewn with bone shards and half-sunk cart wheels [15]. A fungal giant burst from the floor there [16].
  • Corridor of the Hollow Guardians. The only way on. Dozens of hollow eye sockets turned to follow the party, ending at two glowing figures who asked whether they were thieves or servants of the hollow [17].
  • Collapsed side passage. Rubble over a hidden satchel holding five red vials and a scroll of Wither and Bloom [18].
  • Sludge-pit cavern. A humid, reeking bowl of acid-frothing pits, joined by five-foot stone runnels, where corpses in the sludge rose as zombies [19][20].
  • Hall of the minotaur. Stone doors sagging on broken hinges [21] into a hall that predates Umbrafall [22], lit by biogloom, with a minotaur icon in the floor and stairs up and down [9].
  • Statue storeroom. Crates among minotaur statues, where a phase spider waited on the ceiling [23][24]. The party long-rested behind rubble and an Alarm [25][26].
  • Bookshelf room. A sarcophagus barring the doorway and a bookshelf of scrolls that drew Caelumn to his knees until Hugo dragged him out by the leg [27]. It was left unread [28].
  • The maze. Open corridors fifteen feet wide under a ceiling about 60 feet up, with nowhere to hide [29]. Off it lie Maelis’s desk and notes [30], a node chamber with two giant minotaur statues [31][32], a trapped sarcophagus and a store of organs and potions [33], and the boss’s chamber, which Caelumn stumbled into by accident [34].

Inhabitants

In the explored section: Maelis Dirn and her giant, The Titan, and the two Hollow Guardians, with a fungal giant, zombies and a phase spider [16][17][20][24]. Maelis died in session 7 [35] and the rest were killed or gone. The brief names no one for the wider system.

Government / control

The brief names no one in charge. The explored section was Maelis’s lair and workshop until the Titan killed her [35]. The Guardians spoke of “the Master” [36], and the Broker said the Hollow would pay what was owed for her death [37]. Neither line says who rules the wider workings.

Notable features

  • The biogloom. It lit the cave, fed the fungi and, in Maelis’s notes, bound the Titan: its soul was spliced to the biogloom root network under Umbrafall, held by three nodes and later five [38][39][40].
  • The super node. A chamber made to draw on the biogloom of Umbrafall and channel it inwards towards the maze [41].

History in the campaign

Session 4: The Still Current, the Black Mask, and Hugo’s Pact

Main article: Session 4

The Warrens first came up when the Broker contracted the party to kill Maelis. She sent her dogs to collect coin, he said, and then “scurries back into the Warrens”, so the party should follow them in [42]. The party trailed three masked collectors through the market, lost them when they bolted, and tracked them to an opening in the ground [43][44].

Session 5: Black Hollow Market Tunnels and the Hollow Guardians

Main article: Session 5

The party went down the tunnel under the market, and the DM told them they had entered the bottom warrens [10][6]. Detect Magic was swamped [11]. Caelumn’s Produce Flame set off the spores and bared a rune trail to a hidden door [12][13][14]. Inside, a fungal giant burst from the floor [16], two Hollow Guardians asked whether the party were thieves or servants of the hollow [17], and risen corpses in a sludge-pit cavern ended the session [20].

Session 6: Maze of the Minotaur and the Titan

Main article: Session 6

Beyond the sludge pits lay a hall older than Umbrafall [22], a phase spider in the storeroom [24] and a bookshelf that bent Caelumn’s will [45]. In the maze Hugo found Maelis’s desk and her notes on binding the Titan’s soul to the biogloom network [30]. Terry’s Arcana check showed the node chamber to be a super node drawing on the biogloom [46]. The Titan fight began and stopped mid-round when the session ran over [47].

Session 7: Maelis Falls, Vasquez Captured

Main article: Session 7

Hugo cut down the last cluster of nodes and the Titan, drawing the shadows in, grew stronger than ever [48]. It turned on Maelis when she pointed her ring at it and pounded her into the ground [35]. It looked at Hugo “like he knows you” and vanished [49]. The party took her cracked ring, 50 gold and two vials of biogloom toxin [50].

Status

As of session 23. The explored section is cleared and abandoned, and the party has not been back since session 7. The wider workings that the brief says keep the city alive have never been entered. The party’s present road leads towards Umbrafall, but nothing at the table has pointed it back underground.

See also

References

  1. ^ : World brief only for the name and the wider system (DM world brief, 2026-05-17).
  2. ^ Session 4, line 1572-1840: The Broker names the Warrens as Maelis's lair; the party trails her collectors to an opening in the ground.
  3. ^ Session 5, line 173-1607: The tunnel under the market, the hidden entrance, the Hollow Guardians, the satchel and the sludge-pit cavern.
  4. ^ Session 6, line 226-1527: The minotaur hall, the storeroom, the bookshelf, the maze, Maelis's desk and the node chamber.
  5. ^ Session 7, line 566-633: The Titan kills Maelis and disappears; the party loots her remains.
  6. ^ Session 5, line 265: Inline citation.
  7. ^ Session 5, line 397: Inline citation.
  8. ^ Session 5, line 229: Inline citation.
  9. ^ Session 6, line 312: Inline citation.
  10. ^ Session 5, line 173: Inline citation.
  11. ^ Session 5, line 239: Inline citation.
  12. ^ Session 5, line 292-322: Inline citation.
  13. ^ Session 5, line 351: Inline citation.
  14. ^ Session 5, line 384: Inline citation.
  15. ^ Session 5, line 397-399: Inline citation.
  16. ^ Session 5, line 484-486: Inline citation.
  17. ^ Session 5, line 891-894: Inline citation.
  18. ^ Session 5, line 1506-1538: Inline citation.
  19. ^ Session 5, line 1570: Inline citation.
  20. ^ Session 5, line 1607: Inline citation.
  21. ^ Session 6, line 226: Inline citation.
  22. ^ Session 6, line 236: Inline citation.
  23. ^ Session 6, line 376: Inline citation.
  24. ^ Session 6, line 392-396: Inline citation.
  25. ^ Session 6, line 807: Inline citation.
  26. ^ Session 6, line 840: Inline citation.
  27. ^ Session 6, line 1025-1087: Inline citation.
  28. ^ Session 6, line 1118: Inline citation.
  29. ^ Session 6, line 1160-1167: Inline citation.
  30. ^ Session 6, line 1226-1230: Inline citation.
  31. ^ Session 6, line 1372: Inline citation.
  32. ^ Session 6, line 1404: Inline citation.
  33. ^ Session 6, line 1484-1527: Inline citation.
  34. ^ Session 6, line 1356-1361: Inline citation.
  35. ^ Session 7, line 610-614: Inline citation.
  36. ^ Session 5, line 1182: Inline citation.
  37. ^ Session 4, line 1576: Inline citation.
  38. ^ Session 6, line 1230: Inline citation.
  39. ^ Session 6, line 1245: Inline citation.
  40. ^ Session 6, line 1455: Inline citation.
  41. ^ Session 6, line 1419-1425: Inline citation.
  42. ^ Session 4, line 1572: Inline citation.
  43. ^ Session 4, line 1818: Inline citation.
  44. ^ Session 4, line 1830: Inline citation.
  45. ^ Session 6, line 1061-1087: Inline citation.
  46. ^ Session 6, line 1409-1425: Inline citation.
  47. ^ Session 6, line 2933: Inline citation.
  48. ^ Session 7, line 570-572: Inline citation.
  49. ^ Session 7, line 615: Inline citation.
  50. ^ Session 7, line 633: Inline citation.
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