place

Barrier Observatory

The graves beneath the Barrier Observatory.

Summary

The Barrier Observatory is the observatory section of Ennui’s laboratory: an ancient stone and marble complex built in tandem with the Barrier, containing moon research, Joy’s rooms, clone chambers, directional shifts, and links to prisons and laboratories.

Illustrative Artwork

Illustrative campaign art of the party discovering Joy’s hidden room beneath the Barrier Observatory.

Known Details

It is about 1,000 years old and was built to observe the moon and Barrier.
User clarification establishes that the observatory is part of Ennui’s laboratory rather than a fully separate site.
It has a marble dome pressed against the Barrier, a large telescope or golden spyglass, Tri-moon research, and missing Astronomy T shelf material.
Early rooms had the feel of a hidden surgical and holding complex: empty cages, an operating table, boxes, a guillotine, rope, blood and decay, and smells of sea and sulphur.
Joy’s areas mixed domestic child-space with machinery and danger: a trapped bedside drawer of medical tools, crystals, flasks, a diary, a secret stone den with toys and a beanbag, and a massive dome above where the golden spyglass and Barrier-breaking crystals stood.
Its layout shifts by campaign directions: earthwise, firewise, airwise, and waterwise.
The underground holy-place route descended by stone steps to a white-flower door, solemn music, fizzing Barrier water, a riverbank shrine, six Joy gravestones with everlasting flowers, and a disturbed grave.
The caverns beyond the shrine became increasingly overgrown and oversized: rocky ground, roots, mildew, giant mushrooms, a huge butterfly, and then a lake with massive lily pads, frogs, frog spawn, and a magical object in the centre.
Directional shifts changed the same site into dead flower beds, missing doors, bleeding acidic runes, a triangular Barrier, a metal clone chamber with eight glass chambers, and statue rooms for Throngore and Igraine.
It contains Joy’s room, graves, clone chambers, lake caverns, a shrine, Core suits, a teleportation or summoning circle, and a shifting local Barrier system.
An underground prison entrance later resembled a room previously seen in the observatory.
User clarification places the Everchard Prison next to Ennui’s laboratory, making it part of the same broader site network.

Timeline

day-05: The party reaches the observatory during Barrier attacks.
day-06: The party explores Joy, clone, moon, and Musher clues.
day-14: Prison architecture resembles observatory areas.

Open Questions

Why does the observatory change by direction?
What remains active in the clone and Core systems?

Images

Joy's hiding place at the Barrier Observatory