Planar Gate: The Chamber of Stolen Souls
Deep beneath the earth, hidden in the center of a great labyrinth, and protected by extraplanar beings charged with allowing only those with the correct password to access it, is the Chamber of Stolen Souls. The guards (see below) stand outside the chamber’s closed and locked door and ignore any who come by . . . unless they interact with the guards in any way or attempt to open the door by any means other than the password.
The exact number and power of the chamber’s guards fluctuate (the gamemaster should scale these guards so that any battle with them is a very difficult encounter for the PCs) with time but those that are there will fight to the death to keep outsiders from entering the room.
The password is “sleepless domain” in an ancient demonic dialect that is no longer spoken. (Whether or not the player characters know the password is entirely up to the gamemaster. Perhaps one of the adventurers read of this work in a discovered tome, or maybe the password was handed down by a wizard who needs the party to enter the negative energy plane and recover an artifact or object or power.)
The door swings open instantly when the password is spoken. If the password is unknown, and the guards are defeated or distracted in some manner, the door may be smashed open.
This 20 ft. square room, adorned with elaborate carpets and tapestries and sealed by a heavy, metal door, is a one-way portal to the negative energy plane. Anyone entering the room, who closes the door, and then falls asleep, will awaken on the negative energy plane.
This planar gate was first released in 2005 as a part of A Dozen Planar Gates and Storms. When working on Gregor’s Guide to Gates, I bypassed this particular gate because I didn’t think it was quite fanciful enough to add to the updated and expanded collection of planar gates. It is posted here (in a rewritten form) for those who are in need of more gates for their campaign.