The Dungeon Master for our D&D: Adventures in Eberron campaign took the night off and I took the opportunity to offer up a 1-Shot adventure for anyone who was interested. Three out of the four players who expressed interest showed up and that turned out to make for a great, fast moving game session.
I provided some pregenerated 1st-level characters so that we could skip making characters and get right into the gameplay. Which worked out, because they were able to make it through the entire adventure in the 2.5 hours allotted to us. They chose a fighter, a cleric, and a rogue. Which is just about the perfect party for delving into an ancient tomb full of restless spirits and deadly traps.
The Hook: The tavernkeep has been sponsoring scavengers into the ruins. His last group of proteges had a bit of bad luck and only one of them made it back to the fort. But... they did find a way in to the crypt. There is a cave above the tomb to the north. Some resourceful grave robbers have dug a tunnel from the cave to the tomb. Find the Crypt of the Sun and Moon. Find the cave. That's your way in. Try not to die and I'll make sure you get fair reward for whatever treasures you come away with.
I brought and used my terrain tiles, despite them being unfinished. Which gave a very pink theme to the whole tomb, but everyone seemed to appreciate the extra touch and it worked out nicely.
They refused to avoid a nasty wyvern encounter I placed at the entrance to push them to the cave. But, not wanting to end the night early, I had the thing take it's dinner and fly off. Once they determined they didn't have the tools or knowledge to open the tomb, I got them heading to the cave. They followed the dead end tunnel and it collapsed into the tomb, but the rogue was quick enough to avoid the fall. They used a bit of rope and descended into the chamber bellow and the adventure truly began.
Inside they broke through to the entry stairwell after extracting the fighter from the pit trap he found himself in after the stairs collapsed. Beyond, they found the breached chamber to be populated with an assortment of bats, spiders, snakes, and scorpions that had found their way into the chamber. They found signs of carnage at the bottom of the pit and some still intact potions in a backpack. A trail of disturbing tracks rose out of the pit and disappeared into a fissure in the wall at the ceiling.
Deeper in the tomb they dealt with the ghoul whose presence and tracks were foreshadowed in the first stairwell. A pair of long dead priests or attendants rose from their rest to defend the stores within the annex and were dealt with in a most violent fashion. The vault was breeched and looted before the sarcophagus was investigated.
Trapped within the sarcophagus was a creature of shadow and darkness. But with fantastic inititive rolls and an even better spell attack roll the cleric blasted the creature with divine light even as it rose from the now open tomb. The spell destroyed the thing nearly before the threat of it's presence was even realized.
And having vanquished the undead from the tomb and looted its treasures, this group of adventurers returned to the light of day. The long trek back to the keep was made more bearable by the knowledge that they had survived their first delve in to the secrets of the Tombs of Cathedra.
I had fun. The players said they had fun. All in all I think it was a success. I learned a few things about encounter balance and the swinginess of the D&D system. Things I already knew, but sometimes forget to acknowledge. I'll change a few things up next time, but there will definitely be a next time.
Comments
Post a Comment