Hiding Easter Eggs (Kingmaker Spoilers)

I originally posted this in the Kingmaker threads, but I haven't gotten any responses yet. It's only been half a day, but I'm impatient.

I have put together all the maps from all six adventures in the Kingmaker AP, and a lot of the hexes "in between" modules are missing encounters. Actually, a lot of the hexes, in general, are missing encounters. While I don't want to fill every single one, I do want to put more stuff in for my group.

They are a good mix of old and new players from all eras of the game, and a couple of them have been playing since the late 70s. After reading in another thread about an Easter egg encounter in Rivers Run Red against the mad hermit and his pet cougar (a tribute to B1 Keep on the Borderlands), I decided that I wanted to pursue this idea a little more and give those old school guys something to be nostalgic about.

So, I dug out some of the adventures I ran during my AD&D days, and went looking through them for ideas. The problem: everything that resonates with me has no real application to Kingmaker. I fondly remember the Against the Slave Lord modules, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, and The Vault of the Drow. There are some things in Against the Giants that may be able to be imported, but it's kind of hard coming up with stuff that wouldn't be either out of place or overly high in level at this point (they're only just about to take on the Stag Lord, so 3rd level). I guess I just don't have any strong memories of the lower level stuff from back then (Ghost Tower of Inverness, Keep on the Borderlands, Village of Hommlet, etc). While I do want some higher level stuff (I plan on hiding these tributes throughout the entire path), I still want some to come up sooner than later. Baba Yaga's Hut would be a little extreme, right now...

At any rate, I thought I would ask all of you about your own memories. What encounters really resonated with you from those old 1E modules? More to the point, which ones do you think would fit into a hex in Kingmaker? For those who don't know, Kingmaker is an exploration based AP that takes place in a sandbox. I.E. "You're home base is this fort. The wilderness spreads away all around you. Where do you want to go?" So, small scale encounters work really well. Dropping Expedition to the Barrier Peaks into the middle of it isn't what I'm looking for.

Alternatively, if you know of other easter eggs in the AP, point them out for this old school player who only seems to remember levels 10+ from his junior high days.

Thanks for the help. Hopefully, I'm not spinning my wheels...

Sadly enough Expedition to the Barrier Peaks would probably fit better than most that you mentioned, given the proximity to Numeria (and the toys one NPC in book 5 has).

Try Beyond the Crystal Cave, Secret of Bone Hill/Assassin's Knot, Needle and maybe some others? White Plume Mountain maybe?

Perhaps you could use a scaled-down version of the hill giant steading from Against the Giants, entirely constructed at Small size and populated by goblin bandits (or kobolds, or mites), complete with all the giants re-interpreted as these small bandits. In my experience, the hill giant adventure usually ended up with a single mass battle once the alarm was raised (usually in or near the main throne room?) - duplicating that kind of scene with less threatening foes could be high comedy!

Ghost Tower of Inverness had a couple of puzzles, but I admit I can't recall much in the way of details. White Plume Mountain has some more-recognizable bits, such as the log-flume ride, the greased spinning cylinder, and the dangling disks, any of which could be adjusted for low levels.

The stag pins used by some of the bandits are already sort of a callout to the drow family badges - and

How about a change meeting with a low-level adventuring duo, Rogan and Zelligar (not sure of the spelling), the two guys who eventually go on to build the dungeon in module B1?

Outside of those, the two modules that stick most in my head are Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain. You don't need encounters from same level of the modules, just references....If you meet a 2nd level wizard named Acerak, isn't your first thought, "I'd better take him out *now* before he becomes trouble"?

Sorry about the second thread, guys. I had that in the General area for a reason. Apparently the moderators felt differently.

This is a duplicate thread. Please continue discussion over here.