We left our courageous adventurers back at the town of Darsildorf where they had to take Akzaan of Ashmount (the Mountain Dwarf fighter) to the local temple for rest after his near-death stabbing.
Just a reminder, for this campaign, I am using the map from the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide.
With one-man down, the characters spent the second day of their adventure checking for mercenaries for hire to buff up their numbers, but none were available.
I check to see if there are mercs (and even additional characters) each week. I use some rules and tables from Issue 11 of d12 Monthly.
This put me into a bind as I didn’t want to go into that dungeon with just three characters, and they were running out of funds to stay at the inn already and so needed to find some treasure in the dungeon soon.
It was then I decided to make a new rule:
I will continue to roll for new characters to be available each week, but I will always have a minimum of 4 characters available to adventure. This means, that I always have enough of a party to survive the dungeon.
A New Character
So, a new character was available:
Kristoff – a Surface Dwarf (Azlan) Undead Hunter of Lucindar
Undead Hunters are a new core class I created in Issue 13 of d12 Monthly.
I made it that Kristoff had heard Flame Athok was looking into an old silver mine and thought he may offer his assistance to a fellow believer.
Of course, the party agreed.
The next day, the characters were once more off to the mines.
They continued with the plan – to check the living quarters first.
The Dungeon
They checked the door to Area 6, and could hear nothing at all and so opened the door carefully to reveal…
Nothing!
A complete room with nothing but ages of dust and a few broken bits of tools scattered about.
They moved to the iron-bound door to Area 4 and decided to spike the door shut. They didn’t want whatever in there to get out and didn’t fancy losing anyone else to whatever was in there just yet.
In reality, I knew what the characters didn’t, and that was it was an insane orc, left by his fellows to survive the dungeon. It lives in Area 5, and it was he that stabbed Akzaan with a spear and almost killed him (see session 1 of this campaign).
Area 3
Changing plans, they decided to check out Area 3.
As they make their way down the long passage they start to hear signs a scurrying movement.
They head further down the passage until their light starts to show the chamber. They see straw and wood mounds throughout the chamber.
They approached slower still, watching for movement. They spotted something scurry from one mound to another, but the lantern light didn’t catch it in time.
The new character, Kristoff, was leading the party, and as he stepped into the room an ancient spear trap was triggered and slammed into his side, but luckily the spring that fired it was old and it didn’t pierce his mail coat (just a single point of damage).
Just then though, one of the GIANT RATS sprung from their nests just as the spear had a moment before, and converged on Kristoff.
He was caught off-guard as he checked his armour from the spear, and the rat managed to take a serious bite to Kristoff’s side, rending his armour.
Mail chain links went flying as did a spurt of blood as Kristoff grunted in pain through clinched teeth! He cursed it aloud, as he knew what rat bites can do.
The giant rat scored a Nat 20 to Kristoff. This meant the rat not only rolled 5 or more than it needed to (which is a threat and does more damage than normal), but also any armour takes damage.
His chain shirt loses a point of protection and needs to be fixed. You can find these rules in Issue 3 of d12 Monthly.
Kristoff survived and managed to down the beast, but they new more were on the way, so they retreated.
As Athok looked at Kristoff’s wound and didn’t think there was any issues with disease (Kristoff made his save), they decided to stick to the original plan and deal with the giants rats later, and so they set off back to the living areas of the mine.
Area 7
They managed to get to Area 7 on the map without fuss.
The door was wet and rotted and they pushed it open to reveal a smallish room filled with moss and fungus.
This was a feature only, so no danger here.
The characters thought better about entering and continued on.
The characters decide to check out area 4 again and take care of whatever is in there. As they made their way back to the iron-bound door, they hear a smashing and splintering sound and as they round the corner, they see a manic ORC charge them.
Graswin throws his spear at the creature and manages to fell it before it reached the party. They investigate the orc and realise it must have been the creature that almost killed Akzaan.
They decide to store the body in one of the barrels in Area 1 and so drag it back there. As they open another of the barrels, an animated dwarven skeleton attacks! (See Area 1 in Session 1).
Athok makes quick work of it with his trusty mace, but it was this experience that made the character realise there are probably more undead dwarves in the rest of the barrels!
They decide to leave the dungeon at this point and return home, but vow to buy some more holy water or oil and take care of these barrels.
They make it back to the inn and a warm, safe bed for the night.
To be continued…
While You’re Here…
Since 2021 I have been publishing d12 Monthly, a monthly zine, which has a ton of articles for any edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
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