Part 1

Imagine an ancient city, where generation upon generation has lived since
time immemorial. On one side of the city, abutting the crowded tenements, is
a stagnant green lake, overgrown with huge water lilies, and in the centre,
a small island given over almost entirely to an ancient tomb. The tomb is
crumbling now, its ruins covered in moss and slime.

Every year, adventurers set out attempting to loot the tomb, for it is
reputed to contain a vast treasure. But few return, and those that do,
return confused or traumatized into amnesia. Their accounts of what befell
them, befuddled and contradictory. The party will have gathered these
stories and legends naturally, and sifted them, examining them as intensely
as a scholar studies an ancient manuscript. But ultimately they are of
little use, for no account agree's with another, save that a long staircase
leads down to a hall lined with statues, at the far end of which is an iron
bound portal. Beyond these few details, nothing more can be reconciled.

As the adventurers cast off from the stone pier to row the short distance to
the dread isle, the locals gather weeping and offering up prayers at the
shrine of a death goddess as they cast petals upon the still waters. Once
inside the tomb, the party finds a descending stair, leading into darkness.
The stairs bring them to a long hall filled with statues, and at the far end
are the iron bound doors.

Part 2

The party has descended the stairs, and entered a long hall lined on both
sides by many statues, and at the far end stand two imposing iron bound
doors. (A detect magic will reveal the doors alone radiate a magical aura).

If the party approaches the doors and pushes on them, they will swing open
with an ease that belies their ponderous bulk. Once the party has fully
entered the chamber beyond, the doors will swing shut with an enormous boom
which echoes ominously throughout. Note: even if the party has placed
obstructions or spiked the doors to prevent them from closing, these
measures will be somehow snapped, or knocked, or swept aside. How this
happens will be not clear, it will just be so.

The only way to keep the doors open is to destroy the hinges, and should the
party attempt this extremely challenging engineering feat or attempt to
tunnel out once the doors have closed, an executioner slaad will be
summoned. It will first attempt to negotiate with the party, urging them,
with slobbery vowels, into the darkness beyond. As a last resort it will
attack, attempting to herd the party further inside.

Otherwise, an inspection of the chamber will reveal that it is empty, a set
of stairs on the opposite side leads down as far as torch or lantern will
illuminate, and every wall is covered with a fluid script of unknown origin,
which seems to writhe unsettlingly when studied too intensely or for too
long. Note: if a comprehend languages spell is cast at this point, the
caster will understand that the inscriptions are liturgical texts
(concerning the 32,768 blessings of the goddess of death).

Pressing onwards, the party will descend many flights of stairs, barriers
slamming shut behind them on every landing and sinking ever deeper into the
bowels of the earth. At last they will enter a hall, which will prove to be
empty on first inspection, but as they cross to an archway on the far side,
spirit naga's will materialise around them (it won't be immediately obvious
whether they've simply appeared out of thin air, or have emerged from some
secret hiding place). From then on they will travel through a chain of
linked hallways. The interconnecting corridors will be trapped with all
manner of physical traps and magical glyphs, and the halls will be ambush
sites.

Astute players will be quickly able to predict the locations of both traps
and ambushes, and ample time will be available to them prepare. Intelligent
players may also notice that they seem to be running the gauntlet of a
series of tests. Little should be done to confute this notion, indeed any
subsequent encounters should serve to confirm the players suspicions. (for
instance, if detect magic or detect evil are being actively used for
scanning the halls, it will revealed that the creatures are materialising
around the party as they cross).

Both traps and encounters will steadily increase in severity, and both
clerics and paladins will suffer heavily in these encounters, and it will
appear that they are being targeted deliberately.

Finally the party will enter an immense, many pillared hall (the proportions
of which will be truly staggering, covering a number of acres at the very
least). On the far side of this hall, is a recessed area that has been inset
deep into the floor, and here the party will find a huge sarcophagus. It
will be immediately obvious that it has been opened before, perhaps many
times before (indeed there is ample evidence of damage all around).

Detect magic will reveal nothing, nor will detect evil (but an augury may
reveal otherwise). If the characters remove the lid, it will slide back
quite easily and an unearthly light will spill blindingly from within,
illuminating the hall both far and wide. Any character looking inside will
be only able to discern the top few courses of stonework before the light
becomes dazzling. And any character foolish enough to climb inside, is lost
forever.

Almost immediately a faint scream will emanate from within, quickly joined
by others, growing rapidly in both shrillness and volume.

Unless the party is extremely quick or extremely cautious, glowing amorphous
things of light will zoom out filling the chamber with their shrieks, but
quickly they will turn their attentions to the party and they will dive into
the players bodies (unless the characters are protected from evil - in which
case they will circle in frustration). They cannot be harmed, not even with
magical weapons, and nor will any spells have an effect (save from
protection from evil or other spells that provide barriers against summoned
spirits). They are also subject to being turned (as ghosts). Also note: that
the number spirits flying out of the sarcophagus will be equal to the
original size of the party).

Any character failing a save against magic will collapse to the floor in a
catatonic state. Those spirits that fail to find a host will flit shrieking
from side to side of the chamber, harassing the surviving party members.

Those party members who succumb to the invasions will fall into a catatonic
state for some minutes, and will thereafter remain in a confused state, not
responding to their names. Should the survivors bind or in any other way try
to restrict them, they will submit unresistingly.

Should the surviving members attempt to backtrack, the will find the archway
through which they entered the chamber, sealed off.

Trapped, with little to do, the situation should quickly turn to growing
despair as the hours tick past. The sarcophagus can safely be resealed at
any point. Searching the chamber for magic or for secret doors will prove a
time consuming task, and although the party may find points in the wall
where they think that there may be secret galleries behind, nothing will
eventuate, a dig spell may reveal a tunnel or cavity, but it will lead
nowhere. Note: it is not impossible for the party to find a way out, its
just very unlikely, and you should assure yourself that they are searching
the correct area and the correct part of the wall (the secret entry being
30' up from the floor).

Party members may attempt to teleport out, but the character(s) will find
that they are either 1000's of years into the future, in a empty, dead city
or an equal number into the past, where a pre-human lizard folk hunt amongst
the marshes).

With the future looking increasingly bleak, a secret door set high up a wall
in one far, dark corner of the chamber will open, and in will troop the high
priest who was conducting the ceremony as the party departed the quay for
the isle and his retinue (which will include many of the mourners at the
ceremony). They will move to subdue or kill the surviving party members.

If they are successful, they will take any surviving members of the party
back to the sarcophagus. The high priest will abjure the spirits back into
the sarcophagus. He will then conduct an exorcism ceremony upon the
possessed members of the party, driving the souls of the characters from
their very own bodies! He will force each released soul into the sarcophagus
and into the domain of the goddess of death, who will be sated, the exchange
of souls complete. Any character still alive at this point will be bound
with many chains, and the high priest will mockingly place an hour glass on
the sarcophagus. And as the high priest and his retinue depart to conduct
the next summoning of souls, the grains of sand will trickle, mesmerisingly
through, each grain ticking off the remaining moments of their lives.

However, should the surviving members of the party succeed in defeating, or
slipping past, or even imprisoning the high priest and his followers in the
chamber, they will find a long tunnel that leads back under the lake to the
temple of the death goddess. The temple will be lightly guarded, and escape
will be straightforward. Otherwise if they linger, they will find documents
and scrolls that more then amply prove the cults guilt. At which point they
can turn the matter over to the authorities or they can wreck vengeance
themselves ...

Explanation

The tenements surrounding the lake are ancient, and many of the more
prominent local families have lived in the area for uncounted generations,
forming a powerful, secretive alliance. Through their affiliation with the
cult of the death goddess, they are able to call back the souls of departed
family members, so long as they give the death goddess a soul in exchange.
Being powerful, they seek to maintain their positions of power within
society by seeking for appropriate bodies to host the souls of those
recalled from death itself.

So they maintain the tomb, and its challenges, to attract, and to test the
mighty thews of warriors or the nimble skills of the thief, and even more
desirable still, to harvest the arcane magics possessed by these powerful
groups. And as every adventuring party disappears into the dark maw of the
tomb, the high priest calls out the names of those to be recalled.