20 Torture Chamber Dressings
Torture chambers are replete with horrors beyond the imaginations of most sane folk. Not all such features, though, are as large and domineering as an iron maiden or rack. Use this list, to generate minor points of note in a torture chamber:
Art Matt Morrow
The room’s walls are slick with water oozing through cracks in the stone. It is cold in the torture chamber.
A pile of wood and sacks of coal—fuel for the chamber’s fires—stand against one wall.
A bucket of dirty water and a filthy scrap of cloth stand next to one of the instruments of torture.
A small, filthy cage contains six half-starved, feral rats. Sometimes, the torturer feeds them “off cuts” from his victims.
Several gently swaying chains hang from the ceiling to a height about five-foot above the floor. Nearby, winches enable the chains to be raised and lowered.
Several candles provide dim pockets of illumination; each is placed to illuminate one of the chamber’s devices.
A row of small hooks jut from the wall nearest the chamber’s door; black hoods and dirty, scorched leather aprons hang from the hooks.
A pool of congealed blood lies near a notable instrument of torture. A half-hearted attempt has been made to dry up the pool with a small pile of sawdust dumped on the floor.
Chains hanging from the ceiling jangle softly in the grip of a slight breeze issuing from some unknown place.
Rank and rotting, bloodstained straw mixed with sawdust covers the floor around the chamber’s notable torture devices.
A wooden bin standing against one wall holds a sodden, filthy mass of clothes torn from the torturers’ last score of victims.
Deep shadows, pregnant with malice, cluster in the room’s corners and recesses. It is as if all the suffering and pain wrought in this room yet lingers on after the victims themselves have died.
Dim light from several guttering torches provide flickering illumination in the chamber’s recesses. A shuttered lantern hangs from the ceiling and emits a faint radiance over the room’s notable instruments of torture.
The torturer’s next victim is manacled to one wall. (Refer to “5: Prisoners” to determine who the PCs encounter here). Clearly in pain, the prisoner begs to be rescued. Badly injured, they’ll need magical healing to be able to escape the dungeon (unless the PCs carry them).
A large book stands on a side table next to a quill and ink pot. Herein is written the information extracted from those put to the question. Most pages feature a scrawled, virtually illegible signature, at the bottom.
A cage hanging from the ceiling in one corner of the room holds a mass of broken, discoloured bones.
Bloody rags and a suspiciously red, partially congealed liquid, fill a rusting bucket standing by the chamber door.
Incongruously amid the gore and instruments of torture a platter of food stands atop a small table along with a flagon of wine and a pewter cup.
A smear of dried blood leads from a large instrument of torture across the floor to the room’s door. (Or alternatively, the smear could lead toward a small cell in which sprawls the torturer’s current victim.)
A long series of small scratches mar one wall. The scratches are a rough count of the victims put to the question in the chamber. If the PCs question the torturer he proudly reveals what the scratches represent and can even put a name to several of the more prominent marks.
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Design Creighton Broadhurst Art Matt Morrow
