After three days in the desert, the party finds the crumbling ruins of a Dwarven keep nestled into the side of a mesa. After a quick search, they discern that the only entrance is directly to the front door – at the end of a long entry tunnel covered by numerous arrow slits.
Trying their best to sneak up, the party moves to the entrance without incident. In the tunnel, though, they find their way blocked by a portcullis. Ibiza (with help from some of the others) manages to lift it and uses her hammer to block it open. As soon as Zim, Damazi, and Erasmus move to the door, a second portcullis drops behind them – splitting the party into two groups. From behind the arrow slits in the walls and murder holes in the ceiling, Troglodyte guards begin throwing spears.
Erasmus manages to teleport inside to confront a Troglodyte directly, and Damazi is able to summon his lion inside the fortress. The others, however, are forced to fire through the narrow openings while they are stuck in a “kill zone”. After some time of this, Ibiza decides it's not the best place to be and so she retrieves her hammer and moves back out of the tunnel entrance to scale the outer walls.
While the rest of the party fights the Troglodytes, Ibiza reaches the top of the mesa, skirts past a group of Vulture Drakes, and drops down into the fortress via a collapsed section. Unfortunately, she finds herself next to a Carrior Crawler in a different section of the fortress.
With the Carrion Crawler in pursuit, Ibiza rejoins the rest of the group. Damazi uses his lion to drag one of the dead Troglodytes to distract the Carrion Crawler. This allows the party to focus their attention on the remaining Trogs before dealing with the Crawler.
This plan works well, but the Vulture Drakes on top the mesa drop into the Courtyard area to harrass the party while they are dealing with the Crawler. In the end, the battle lasts much longer than the party had hoped, but they are victorious.
This adventure comes from Dungeon Magazine issue #159 (pages 56-93).
To account for the larger (and higher level) party, I added a third Troglodyte Impaler and a third Troglodyte Mauler to the “Gatehouse” encounter – changing it from 1,450 XP to 2,000 XP.
Also, since I had used Harpies only four sessions ago (at "Glimmer Lake"), I replaced the 4 Harpies (Controller/6, 250 XP) in the “Courtyard” encounter with 4 Vulture Drakes (Brute/9, 400 XP) – changing it from 1,300 XP to 1,900 XP.
Because of Ibiza's side excursion, the two encounters got merged into one long, running battle. However, Damazi's distraction of the Carrion Crawler allowed the party to fight the monsters serially, instead of at the same time.
The whole thing lasted roughly 25 rounds and took the entire evening to run, but was great fun. Because it was effectively two encounters, I awarded the party a milestone.
| # | Challenge | Type | XP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Troglodyte Maulers | Soldier/6 | 250 |
| 3 | Troglodyte Impalers | Artillery/7 | 300 |
| 1 | Troglodyte Curse Chanter | Contoller/8 (Leader) | 350 |
| 1 | Carrion Crawler | Controller/7 | 300 |
| 4 | Vulture Drakes | Brute/9 | 400 |
| 1 | Borrowed last session | -546 | |
| Total XP | 3,354 | ||
| (5 PCs)1) | 671 | ||