Lyssic's Crypt

Lyssic's Crypt was one of the bigger crypts in Polyandrium of Myth Drannor dedicated to a human Akh'Velahr commander Lyssic.

Location
Lyssic's Crypt was located to the west from the Tower of Bones, a the very edge of the Polyandrium.

Structure
The entrance to the tomb once was indicated by a huge and majestic stature of a mounted knight. By 1369 DR, the stature was broken and its chunks were scattered in the vicinity if the tomb's doors. The tomb had one overground floor and one deep passage descended deeper into underground. The crypt was big enough to house commander Lyssic in his mausoleum and members of his military company. With centuries passing, the deeper part of the crypt became flooded with rising water levels under the graveyards.

Interior
Past a short entrance way the crypt opened into the Entry Chamber with two doors across from the entrance and two halls to left and right. The entry antichamber had a masterfully carved stature of a snarling lion facing the entering guests. The two doors in the chamber led to a storage room and a small library. By 1369 DR, the storage room door was smashed open and the room only had rusted weapons, damages jars of mead and wine, and preserved jerky. The library walls were lined with tall bookshelves with most tomes succumbing to humidity and mold. Those books that cold be salvaged were penned in both Common and Elven and featured ancient tales, accords of battles, volumes on tactics, and personal journals of soldiers interred inside Lyssic's Crypt.

The side halls led from the Entry Chamber to the Officers' Quarters on both sides of the crypt. The officers' mausoleum walls were lined with alcoves that were used for soldier interring. By 1369 DR, the bodies were carelessly thrown about the floor and doors - broken open. Each of the Officers' Quarters had one door that led deeper into the crypt. The doors opened into sizable halls filled with 2-foot-tall terracotta clay warriors, standing guard. The clay army rooms were illuminated with a pedestal at the center, lit with the continual light spell. One of the rooms held an enchanted sword with strange grooves on its blade. The sword was a kew of sorts to be used deeper in the crypt.

Each of the terracotta army rooms had one exit across the hall from entrance. Those doors led to long hallways that, eventually, joined together at the stairs that plunged deep into the crypt's underground and flooded level. On the opposite wall from the stairway down was a hidden room - a cache, protected by an illusory wall. The hallway was once trapped but in 1368 DR a gnome member of an adventuring party sprung the trap and perished, perforated by spears. His body still decorated the hall as of 1369 DR. The hidden cache held a glass pedestal at its center that produced a jet of blue flame. In the center of the flame jet hovered the legendary enchanted blade - First Light, once wielded by Commander Lyssic. The blue flames were enchante with the magic circle against evil, keeping the blade out of hands and claws of malicious extraplanar creatures. Only devotees of Lathander could claim the blade safely, all others suffered by the burning blue flames.

Further into the tomb and past the long descending stairway one could reach the Crypt Antechamber, flooded by 1369 DR. The underground rooms were filled with two feet of water. The arched ceiling rose 15 ft. off the floor. The square Crypt Antechamber had three doors, one on each side. The chamber was decorated with paintings of ancient grand battles. And waters - filled with filth from rotting bodies of unsuccessful adventurers. The doors to the left and right were made of wood, while the doors across from the stairs up were made of carved white granite and were decorated with statues of a human and an elven soldiers. The granite doors slid up once the unique longsword-keys were inserted into the locking mechanism.

Both, left and right rooms were mausoleums of Lyssic's soldiers. Each room held around twenty five dead warriors, ready to become animated and rip apart the intruders. Apart from the dead, rooms were filled with a random array of valuables that belonged to the soldiers in life. By 1369 DR, one of the rooms' undead inhabitants were destroyed, leaving only bones, and the other was still filled with reanimated claw-handed skeletons, hidden behind a swollen and jammed wooden door.

The final part of the crypt was the Commander's mausoleum - Lyssic's final resting place. The walls of his granite crypt were carved in diverse shapes of weapons and armor. The stone sarcophagus at the center was similarly decorated. Lyssic's body laid inside, desiccated with time and adorned in fine elven gleaming chainmail. His hands held a small engraved stone - the rune of stars, used to access the Crypt of Rothilion on the Polyandrium.

In the far wall of the mausoleum a decorative carving of a tower shield concealed a hidden door. Beyond it laid a narrow tunnel that stretched west for a quarter of a mile and eventually reached a hidden trap door in the South Barracks just outside Castle Cormanthor. The tunnel was created to provide access for the fabled resurrection of Commander Lyssic that was yet to happen by 1369 DR.

Defenses
All throughout the crypt, ancient officer bodies that remained undisturbed were sure to rise in defense of their final resting place. Two chambers willed with hundreds of elf-shaped diminutive animated constructs - terracotta warriors, were ready to unleash the swarming constructs on the graverobbers.

The Commander's Crypt in the flooded level was guarded by two statues, one of a human, other of an elf. Once the tomb was unlocked, both statues became animated and morphed into monstrous shape attacking anyone who attempted to pass them. The only way of protection against the monstrous statues was wearing two magical rings, hidden somewhere in Lyssic's Crypt.

History
This military crypt was constructed and started seeing use before the fall of Myth Drannor in the Weeping War. At first, it was used to inter people who fell in combat under the command of Lyssic. Eventually, Lyssic himself perished and his body was placed in the tomb's mausoleum. after this, the crypt became known as Lyssic's Crypt.

Unlike many of the crypts in Polyandrium, Lyssic's final resting place was disturbed in 1368 DR. A group of adventurers went inside and never left, leaving the gates wide open and propped by a boulder. Sometime after the crypt was unsealed, an earthquake stroke the Polyandrium and crumbled the stature of the knight above the entrance. In 1369 DR, Lyssic' tomb was once again disturbed, this time by the agents of the Cult of the Dragon who took over the ruins of myth drannor. The Cult planned on excavating Lyssic's Crypt but a group of adventurers who sought to defeat the cult beat them to it, recovering the rune of stars - the key to the Crypt of Rothilion.

Rumors & Legends
It was believed by the folk of Myth Drannor that Lyssic one day would rise from his grave to defend the City of Song in death at the time of great peril. This, however never happened even though some of commander's troops rose as undead to avenge their deaths to punish unlucky graverobbers.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor