The Tyranny of the Dragon Lord
This is some material from my October Club campaign. This is a scenario when the players are mainly 2nd and 3rd level with just a few at 1st level. As ever feel free to alter anything to fit it in with your campaign.
This adventure is set in the vales of the western misty mountains.The basic idea is that a dragon has set himself up as a lord in a castle in the misty moutains. He has gathered a force of Orcs to serve him and other more powerful creatures have allied with him. This has made him very powerful and he dominates the farming comuunities between Tharbad and the mountains. The few marriors in this area tried to oppose him but most perished . The leaders of the commmunities have sent for help to Tharbad.
Locating the Castle
The community leaders that came to Tharbad will speak off Goblin hordes and other horrors and one of "The Fire that Comes From above". They will tell stories of their farms being burnt down and their people enslaved. The slaves are taken to mine the mountains . The few that have escaped are half mad but tell of the obssesion of the Lord of the Vale for finding mithril Silver. The leaders can point on a map to the region that the attacks come from. They would also guide the party to within a days march but no nearer.
Dragon's Vale approaches
The map below shows the approaches to the vale.
Please note this map is scanned from an Official ICE source on Lorien ( a good book with lots of useful material ) and thus is reproduced for non comercial purposes only. I have added the annotations.
Approaching the vale
There is a high chance that once the party have entered the region shown on this map they might be ambused or trailed by some of the Dragon lords scouts. The country side in this region will be devastated with burnt out farms and destroyed villages. Amongst these ruins they might be attacked by the following band (or bands if you wish the approach to drag on for a while).
Name Level OB DB AT HITS MM SPEC
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Hillman 3 65 20 RL 50 10 2 Handed battle axe
Wolf 3 65 30 sl 110 20 Large Bite
Wolf 3 65 30 sl 110 20 Large Bite
Entering the Vale
The Dragon Vale is 25 miles long . It runs from NW to SE into the mountains. At its western opening there is a out post and a Wizards tower. This guards the only road into the mountains - the road runs through a pass between the wizards tower and the guard out post. (See later for more detail on these)
The South/western side of the vale is hills and downs with rocky summits. Traversing these will be hard going. There is also a high chance on an encounter with a Mountain Troll party.
Name Level OB DB AT HITS MM SPEC
Mountain Troll 10 110 40 20 240 10 Throw stones to 100ft
Mountain Troll 10 110 40 20 240 10 Throw stones to 100ft
Mountain Troll 10 110 40 20 240 10 Throw stones to 100ft
Mountain Troll 10 110 40 20 240 10 Throw stones to 100ft
These use large creature crits and ignore A and B crits.
Riding through the south hill would be hard. The North/eastern sides of the vale are mountainous and very treacherous going. Each hour dice as a hard climbing maneuver to avoid an accidental fall.
High up on the far SE end of the vale is a fortress . There is no land route up to it. It is 500 ft above the ground. Climbing would need 20 sheer folly climbing rolls!
The way to get to the fortress is via a flying ship docked at the Wizard's tower. This entails going into the tower. (see below).
The Wizards Tower and Guard post
These are located north and south respectively of the path running into the Dragon's Vale. The guard post is also slightly in front of the Tower. The small hill seen on the map actually is a twin peaked hill with the path running across it . The land north and south of the hill is patrolled by the same type of bands listed before. The tower and guard post have their backs to the hill. The Wizards' tower actually is in contact with the southern peak.
Guard Post
The guard post is a fairly simple structure with a main door (sturdy reinforced oak, locked hard to pick) in the tower . The tower is 3 levels high. The 2nd level has an entrance into the Guard room and had arrow slits. The 3rd level is the tower top - accessed via a trap door from the tower stairwell.
The Guard room has access to the battlements around it and via a set of stairs down to the garison sleeping quarters and stores on the ground level. There is no ground level access into these rooms.
The garrison is 10 orcs under a Uruk Lt.
Name Level OB DB AT HITS MM SPEC
Uruk Officer 10 110 40 pl 150 10 Has a +10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
There is a tow man ballister on the tower top. It can be fired every other round at +50. It does 2x hits and dbl crits.
The uruk has a money bag with 25GPc. The stores contain bolts for the ballister, spare shields, bows, arrows, swords and barrels of salted meat , bread and ale. Hard to find is a small locked door placed into the wall. It is 6"x 6". It is locked . It is hard to pick . It is trapped and the trap is a poison cloud (8th level poison 5d10 hits loss per round within a 20' radius. Inside here is a bag of 50 GPc and a key(To the Wizard's Tower)
Wizard's Tower
The wizard tower is posistioned against a cliff face. The entrance is away from the cliff. The towers garrison is able to guard the lower battlements , the balconies on the tower and the tower top. The entrance leads into a guardroom and barracks with a small store room as a basement. The upper floor of the main part of the building consists a stairwell leading up to the tower and the rooms of the Lord of the tower a Wizard. The stairs lead up past doors out onto the balconies to the top battlement.
The towers garrison is as follows:
Name Level OB DB AT HITS MM SPEC
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 sword
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
Orc 3 65 20 ch 70 10 comp bow
The Wizard is 6th level . He will use his staff of lightning bolt (at +50) or cast up to 3 Firebolts. He has 90 hits, DB 30 and can fight with a dagger at +50. The wizard's room . This is against the back wall of the tower. There is a desk , and a bed. The desk has 2 drawers:
Left drawer is hard to pick and hard to disarm. It sets of a stun cloud. Inside is a +3 adder, a rod of lightning bolts with 5 charges and a scroll of stone fires.
The right drawer is locked and hard to pick. Same trap. It contains 60 GPC.
Also in this room is a secret door inthe rear wall. It leads to a tunnel into the cliff comming out in a cavern on the east side facing the Dragon Lords Hall. Floating above the floor of this chamber is a flying ship...
This is the end of part1