Terracotta Necropolis
Added 2025-04-30 21:54:44 +0000 UTCThe old man you met in town seems to be an archeologist, and he said that an ancient Necropolis has been discovered, just a few days away from the city. He marks the location in your map and says that he will be waiting for you in the entrance, eager to discover the powerful artifact secured in the Necropolis vault.
Once inside, and deep down the Necropolis, everything seems peaceful. Terracotta statues, millennia old, watch over the corridors and dusty rooms, motionless.
Suddenly, one of them starts moving. Then two, then three. In a few seconds, a whole army of Terracotta Warriors start marching towards you. This is going to be an interesting fight.
Welcome to a new setting! The Terracotta Necropolis is a multilevel dungeon we are working on. Here we have the first two levels, but at least one more is on the way, and also the exterior entrance!
We will release the guide to the whole dungeon in the future, but until then, here is some notes and inspiration.
Terracotta Necropolis
This Necropolis was constructed a few thousand years ago. Are the Terracotta Warriors guarding something? Is a Terracotta Summoner or Lich creating their own army to attack the surface?
Level -1
Narrow corridors, just a few statues guard this level. This is the perfect introduction to the Terracotta Warrior mechanics to the party. The statues may come to life or not, up to you. Other creatures (or bandits) may also be interested in this level.
The main door to Level -2 may only open solving a puzzle.
Level -2
Nobody have ever entered here since a few thousand years ago, when the Necropolis was first built.
This open space is prepared for a big battle. Careful, there are a lot of Terracotta Warriors here, even some chariots with horses.
A very reflective canal of mercury slowly flows through the ground towards a sink that goes to a deeper level.
Down below are a few ideas to run this encounter.
Level -3
This is the Boss Room with floating platforms and giant Magical Terracotta Hands. Check it out in the Terracotta Necropolis Boss Room post.
Terracotta Soldiers
There are two types of statues, the Warrior and the Mage. The Warrior uses brute force, while the Mage uses earth magic to support the Warriors from a safe distance.
The army is meant to be fought in squads, here are some mechanics that may inspire your encounters, although we will release the definitive mechanics in the future guide.
The Terracotta Soldiers are indistinguishable from regular statues.
They are very slow
If presented in large numbers, they may be weak against certain types of attacks, or maybe directly destroyed by critical strikes or damage over a threshold.
They can be equipped with multiple types of weapons: swords, longswords, spears, etc. Non-wood weapons as they have decayed over time.
Maybe they all attack in unison in the same turn initiative.
They are stronger in formation, maybe more AC depending on how many other soldiers adjacent?
Maybe every squad counts as a single entity and the health and size is the number of soldiers remaining in the group. They move all together and perform the same action. They can willingly separate into multiple sub-armies or join together again.
They may wake up row after row every round.
The map
Both maps have exits to what can be a future Modular Necropolis kind of pack in the same fashion of our other Modular Maps :) Let us know if you would be interested in this.
There are Variations with and withough Warriors, just in case you want to place them yourself and surprise the players with living Terracotta Statues.
The Foundry VTT pack is pre-configured with walls and lights in two scenes, as regular.
That's it! We hope you like it!
Downloads
Variations
