I wrote previously about using puzzles and about playground rooms. This is another toy for fantasy heroes to explore.

The Inner Sanctum

The heroes hear a tale from a grizzled veteran. The Malsted Monastery was sacked long ago by barbarians, but there is something they didn’t know. There is an inner sanctum, difficult to reach, where several paintings depict various rooms. One of those rooms includes a rich treasure.

If you touch one of the paintings, you are magically transported into the scene (a tiny pocket dimension). There, you can interact with the furnishings, including taking the treasure (if it’s in that one). The barbarians never discovered this, or so the monks who survived say.

The Secret

What the heroes don’t learn, because the old man never knew it, is that each room inside the paintings has similar transportive paintings on its walls. But the painting with the treasure doesn’t have a painting depicting the real world. Furthermore, the painting depicting the treasure isn’t on the wall of the inner sanctum but on the wall of one of the other rooms.

One must go into one painting, then into the treasure painting to take the treasure, and from there into another painting in order to find a painting that depicts the inner sanctum and allows exit to the real world.

The Inner Sanctum

This is the real world. It contains richly carved furniture, including a desk, chair, and meeting table with several more chairs. There are also cabinets, but these where broken in the sack of the monastery.

Its paintings depict the Chapel, the Clerical Chamber, and the Crypt.

The Chapel

This is a depiction of the monastery’s chapel. It has no doors, and its windows, while seeming to depict the outside, are actually merely glowing paintings of the sky.

The wall where the doors should be are instead where the paintings hang. Its paintings depict the Clerical Chamber, the Crypt, and the Wine Cellar.

The Wine Cellar

This is a depiction of the monastery’s wine cellar. A wooden staircase goes to a door that is fake.

One wall holds paintings. Its paintings depict the Clerical Chamber, the Crypt, and the Chapel.

The Clerical Chamber

This is a depiction of one of the chambers where the monks slept, with a pallet bed and meager furnishings. A small window is actually just a glowing painting of the night sky.

Its paintings depict the Chapel, Wine Cellar, and the Inner Sanctum.

The Crypt

This is a depiction of the monastery’s crypt, with several coffins and religious icons. A stone staircase leads up to a fake, ornately carved door.

Its paintings depict the Chapel, Wine Cellar, and the Treasure Vault.

The Treasure Vault

This is a depiction of a treasure vault, a place that only exists in this pocket dimension. It has no doors or windows. It holds various treasures of the adventure.

Its paintings depict the Clerical Chamber, Wine Cellar, and Chapel.

Variations

Instead of describing the Inner Sanctum, the rumors could say the treasure is in a vault that can only be accessed from the crypt. But the real crypt doesn’t have any such access. It’s only by going into the crypt painting that the heroes can find the treasure vault painting.

You might make this is the centerpiece of an adventure by ensuring there is some challenge in each of the rooms in the painting, such as a trap, puzzle, or monster. If nothing else, the Crypt and/or the Clerical Chamber might have challenges, so that the heroes have to deal with something else while getting to the treasure or carrying it away.