Ffrwd Dylluan (Welsh: “The Stream of Owls”)
also known as “The Sanctuary”
DESCRIPTION
Located in the shadow of Mercy Hill in the Severn Valley near Brichester just across the border from Wales in the County of Mercia, Ffrwd Dylluan is a distinguished stone-built house with white framed, multi-paned windows and dark green shutters, its walls heavy with thick growths of ivy.
The grounds are heavily shaded by towering elm and ancient oak trees. Bushes run along the front and west sides of the house, and are scattered along the curving front path.
An eight-foot stone wall completely surrounds the property; it has three stout wooden gates. There is a derelict and near collapsed single-storey cottage located near one of the gates, its windows boarded over and the roof partially caved in.
Inside the walled garden is a two-storey mansion. To the mystically uninitiated, the outside of the spacious two-storey building currently looks deserted and abandoned with broken windows and boarded up doors. Unlike the cottage, this is an illusion maintained by the heath spell cast on the fire mantle in the ground floor reception room. The illusion iof the exterior s not representative of the interior layout of the building.
PECULIARITIES
Inside the main house there is a basement, ground floor living areas, and first-storey bedrooms. However, the first-storey stairways also lead to a second-storey, although it isn’t evident from outside. On the exterior, the narrow second story windows appear between the first floor windows. There appears to be a sloping attic space under the roof, but in fact, it does not exist and there is no entry onto the roof. Fortunately, the roof repairs itself.
The entire house is protected by a permanent glamour. To onlookers outside the house looking in, the enchantment make any supernatural activities either in the house or the enclosed grounds appear as normal equivalents.
Many of the fixtures show eccentric taste. Washbasin handles look like clawed reptilian feet; doorstops resemble scorpion tails, or something similar that isn’t quite ‘natural’. One amber door handle contains a tiny crustacean, others a small alien-looking foetus or scorpion while another sometimes glitters with internal light.
The posts of the living room banister look like wood, but if you strike them, they sound like chimes. The ends of the balustrades are carved into the image of an unadorned chalice on every floor.
The only phones that work in the house are the fixed line dial telephones found throughout the house which still connect to the outside despite the telephone lines no longer being connected to the outside world. The house has recently ‘allowed’ the use of commdots within its grounds.
GROUND FLOOR
The ground floor is conventional, and its layout remains constant. Most visitors notice nothing magical about the house on this floor except for the mirror room unless they realise that the front door can open by itself or that the hall mirror can mist over by itself to reveal messages and reflections of people in its surface who often act and speak independently if asked a question.
The ceilings are 10 feet high. Walls and ceilings are painted off-white. The living room, dining room, and library are carpeted in green. The kitchen, bathroom, and hall floors are tiled. From inside the house the windows are undamaged but all have an unusual oily sheen to them and are self-repairing.
The house is a nexus for the Fae, and has a clan of house sprites and elves inhabiting the house that clean the house and manifest food and househild supplies as needed.
Reception room: Comfortably furnished but with all the furniture covered in dust sheets. Baby grand piano (250 kg) in one corner. Other furniture include a sofa, love seat three recliner and several wooden chairs. All of the wooden panels and the wooden floor have been carved with mystical symbols.
Large brick fireplace with a heavy oak mantel: This mantel is the focus for the Images enchantment that conceals magical activity from the outside.
Dining room: Large oak table (150kg) able to sit a dozen people comfortably with matching chairs and heavy looking sideboards.
Kitchen: apparently fitted out in the 1920’s it has a large butcher block in the centre of kitchen. Knives kept in this room always stay sharp and food never goes off.
Hall: Laundry chute with a ½ metre-square door in the east wall outside the bathroom. Chute leads to the laundry room at the far side of the ground floor near the front of the mansion.
Conservatory: A glass-covered two-storey tall room filled with lots of exotic plants and trees.
Mirror Room: large room covered in multiple framed mirrors of every shape and size, even on the floor and ceiling. On the ground are several rocks, apparently thrown through the undamaged windows with the intention of smashing them. The windows and mirrors are capable of healing themselves.
The mirrors don’t all display the same images or reflections. The ones closest to the door seem to be just be a reflection but those furthest away will show visions of people from earlier in the day and others appear to be suffering from some sort of time dilation effect. One of the mirrors in the far corner shows a formal dance in one of the framed mirrors with people dressed as though in were the 1890’s, others show those present but dressed or looking differently. The section of the mirror-covered floor that had been melted by Abyss previously had fully repaired itself.
Library: Bookshelves with glass panels cover all walls from floor to ceiling. Table and several chairs in the centre of the room, overstuffed recliner under a floor lamp in the outside corner. Some of the books in this room are invisible to non-adepts. These books are the ones that mumble to themselves. Others change as soon as you try to read them or return to the shelves unassisted. Since its merger with the Nerian Nexus it has expanded and now has a live-in librarian in situ.
Second sitting room: An extremely comfortable room mystically soundproofed and shielded against mystical attacks.
Bathroom: Full bath with double sink and shower. Seemingly self-cleaning, but not obviously so.
Gallery: Filled with paintings and portraits, some of which seem to move slightly when you aren’t watching.
West door to the Terrace: This is a fixed gate to a cave in the Andes.
FIRST FLOOR
The first floor looks ordinary, except that it’s larger inside than outside. This is not casually apparent. The layout changes every couple of days or so when no-one is watching. All of the ceilings are 10 feet high. The walls and ceilings are painted off-white. The hall has green carpeting. You can fall asleep in a bedroom to the North of the house and wake up to find the bedroom is now on the East of the property.
Bedrooms: Rooms 1, 3, and 5 have gold carpeting. The other rooms have hardwood floors. All contain queen-size beds, dressers, small tables, and several wooden chairs. All bedrooms have free-standing wardrobes. Inside, each is as big as a walk-in closet.
Bedroom 3 has a small stone fireplace. Anything flammable placed on the grate immediately catches fire.
Bedroom 4 is lit by gas wall lights and oil lamps. The lamps have never run out of fluid. There are no electric lights or outlets.
In Bedroom 6 hangs an elaborate chandelier with candle holders. Four carriage lamps on the walls provide light.
Bathrooms: Full baths with showers. The one off the hall has an electric space heater in the corner.
SECOND FLOOR
The third story is not only huge, It’s weird. The layout changes once or twice dally, but never when anyone is observing. (As they say, a watched house never bolls.)
Hall: The hall is unreasonably large and the ceiling is 18 feet high. Four comfortable chairs and a coffee table make it look less empty. Note that the stairs leading upward emerge in the basement.
Forest Room: Apparently filled with living trees. Breezes rustle through the branches, a hidden sun shines down through the leaves during the day, and a tiny brook winds its way through the place. Occasionally it rains, but not according to the outside weather. This room according to GPS appears to be located in Austria.
The walls are invisible from more than a metre away. Close examination shows that they are covered with a realistic forest pattern of wallpaper. Walking to the North of the room leads out into the forest itself.
Bedrooms 1 and 2: Queen-size bed, dresser, small table, several wooden chairs, and wardrobes.
Living Room: Part of a suite, along with bedroom 2. Two metre square window In the middle of the far wall; behind which swim exotic tropical fish under subdued blue lighting The “tank” does not have boundaries, but there is no sign of it from the bathroom on the other side of the wall.
This is actually a viewing portal of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It cannot be used for travel.
Fountain Room: This room is decorated in full Arabian Nights style. Lavish tapestries decorate the walls. Hanging curtains mark off alcoves and conceal the door. A huge swimming pool takes up most of the room. A two tiered fountain In the middle sprays water. The celling is 25 feet high – plenty of room for the fountain. Around the pool are several lavish reclining couches, chairs, cushions, and heavy Persian rugs which never get wet.
Bedroom 3: Decorated like the fountain room. Beaded, multi-layered curtains across the entry. Huge canopied waterbed in the centre, draped with silks and cushions. Two sculpted marble horses (250 kg). Several ornately carved and gold-banded wooden chests (50 kg apiece) for storage space.
Bathrooms: All contain deep sunken baths. Tub faucets are strange brass fish fixtures. Fish has separate mouths for hot and cold water. Water temperature always exactly right.
The spiral staircases in the centre of the mansion head up but come out into the wine cellar.
BASEMENT & WINE CELLAR
The spiral staircases go down to the basement and the staircase next to the kitchen to the wine cellar. The basement holds furniture, statues and armour from over several centuries. There is a small oak and iron-bound door near the South of the house that lead down to the old foundations of the original castle. This door is carved with mystical symbols and locked with enchanted chains.
The foundations consist of a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms, some of which appear to have once been occupied. These have not been explored for centuries for some reason.
The Master Mage’s Sanctum, The Nerian Nexus was subsequiently added to the house as a dimensional overlay after mystical scavengers attacked it. With the exception of the library (which was transformed into a multistorey room overseen by a transformed Tom Cyprus) all of the additional rooms are in dimensional pockets accessed by doorways and behind hidden panels inside the house.
Tom Cyprus – Librarian
The Library has created a bedroom for him with a dumbwaiter linked to the kitchen in the back of the Library (even though the kitchen is on the same floor and in the opposite side of the house).
Nexus rooms that had integrated immediately such as the Observatory and Aerary are accessed via hidden panels in rear corridors.
Based on the Mobius Mansion detailed in the Champions book ‘The Mystic Masters’
by Allen Varney
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 