Old Lighthouse

This structure sits atop Old Captain's Rock, part of the Reefs to the northwest of Greentarn. It is a hollow cylinder, constructed of sandstone blocks on a granite foundation, and stands approximately 75 feet high. The exterior of the lighthouse is encased in a thick layer of mortar.

The Old Lighthouse has four floors: ground, first, second, and lookout loft, all connected by a central stone staircase.

The outside walls of the lighthouse were once a brilliant white, but are now a dull weathered gray from constant exposure to the elements. The exterior surface of the lighthouse is pitted and scarred with innumerable holes and cracks left by the rough handling of the sea and its intermittent storms. From the lighthouse base to the lower eaves of the lookout loft is a relatively easy climb (DC 20); however, scaling the overhang of the loft and getting from there up to and over the balcony is somewhat more difficult, requiring a Climb check (DC 25).

There is but one door offering ingress and egress, located on the ground floor and opening into a store room filled with provisions.

Ground Floor

This floor of the Old Lighthouse is home to 5 floors (noted on map):

11) Equipment Storage

All manner of maintenance and emergency equipment waits here until it is needed: rope, fishing nets, lumber, sandstone blocks, mortar, hammers, axes, etc.

12) Entry Chamber

The lighthouse door opens into this small room.

13) Provision Storage

Containers of foodstuffs that are too large to be carried easily up the stairs remain here. The stores normally include casks of fresh water, sacks of flour, cases of dried meats, and the like.

14) Privy

This is a small bathroom.

15) Stranger's Room

Sometimes even the beacon and bells of the lighthouse cannot prevent vessels from going astray in foul weather. When that happens, the keepers do all that they can to help stranded crews, including offering this threadbare chamber to anyone who might require it. The room contains three bunk beds outfitted with warm woolen blankets, two sea chests, two lanterns filled with oil, and a small wooden table with three chairs.

First Floor

This floor of the Old Lighthouse houses 5 rooms (noted on map):

6) Eating Hall

As they have done elsewhere in the lighthouse, the ogres have wreaked havoc here. Four of them have shoved all the splintered benches and smashed tables to one side and claimed the room as their resting quarters while in the lighthouse.

7) Kitchen

Apart from ransacking the food preparation area for hidden loot, Black Molly and her ogres have not done anything significant in or to the kitchen.

8) Pantry

The ogres have eaten nearly every scrap of food that this storage area once contained. All that remains are a few crumbs and well-picked bones.

9) Sand Storage

The lighthouse keepers maintain a quantity of sand, stored in dozens of sacks and barrels, for emergencies involving the oil stores or cisterns.

10) Sleeping Quarters

The three lighthouse keepers sleep in this room (normally, two sleep here while the third is on watch in the lookout loft). Before the ogres made kindling out of the comfortable wood-and-leather furniture and smashed all the furnishings, this room was as comfortable and homey as the inhabitants could make it.

Second Floor

The second floor of the Old Lighthouse houses four rooms (noted on the map):

2) Oil Provision Storage

A month’s supply of oil for the beacon is stored in this room. The oil is contained in large clay urns sealed with wax and protected from blows by thick rope wound tightly around their midsections. Each urn holds 5 gallons of oil, and there are approximately 65 urns sitting on the floor.

3) Sand Provision Storage

The lighthouse keepers store a vast quantity of sand, which they keep in a variety of sacks and bins of varying sizes, for use in case of a fire. There are also stacks of empty burlap sacks lying strewn about the floor, and several shovels leaning against the walls.

4) Library

Keeping watch over a lighthouse is a lonely, and oftentimes boring, task. No keeper has yet been illiterate, because reading is one of the few reliable methods of passing the time out here on the rock. Most of the reading matter here consists of sea charts, maps, and simple historical and fiction texts. There is also a complete set of logs kept by all the chief lighthouse keepers, past and present.

5) Oil Cisterns

Half a dozen great copper cisterns hold the oil that fuels the beacon at the top of the lighthouse. A nest of copper pipes connects the cisterns to the individual lamps in room 1 (above). Each cistern holds approximately 10 gallons of oil.

If the PCs sneak into the lighthouse undetected, there is a 25% chance they’ll find Black Molly here, impatiently combing through all this printed matter (especially the logs) for some clue to the whereabouts of the amulet she seeks.

Lookout

The stone staircase that rises through the entire height of the Old Lighthouse ends here, in this perch from which the keepers can look out over the tossing waves. The loft is essentially an iron cage encased in thick glass panels, built to hold and direct the light of the beacon. The beacon’s light comes from a series of 12 very large oil lamps arranged in an octagon atop a sandstone platform in the center of the room. The light shines out over the darkened ocean in a 360-degree angle, directed and strengthened by 6 circular reflectors constructed of beaten and polished copper. The lamps are fed by oil cisterns, located in the room below (room 5). From an elevated position on land, its light can be seen at a distance of approximately 20 miles. In order to put out the light, Black Molly has simply prevented the beacon from being lit. She has not — so far — destroyed this costly apparatus, but she may be inclined to do so as a means of negotiating with powerful intruders.

There is a brass bell hung from the wall of the loft, part of a warning system that the keepers use to alert one another to danger. The pull-cord runs from the bell down into small, circular hole in the floor, and connects to other bells in various rooms. Pulling on the cord rings all the bells so connected, attracting the attention of everyone in the structure.

A single door leads from the light-room out onto a narrow encircling balcony. Hanging from iron rings from the balcony are a pair of large bells, meant to warn ships in foggy weather; Black Molly’s ogres have also silenced these, by lashing them tightly to the balcony so that they cannot swing free. Four of the pirate’s ogre crew members are on lookout duty here at all times, day and night. From this vantage point they can see all the way to the mainland in clear weather, and approximately 5 miles seaward as well.