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First off...It is the Cairn Hills. I am not sure if you have any GH background material, but I think it is your typical hills, with sprase trees and such...If you want, email me and I'll send you the description from Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
On to the swarm. It is tough if PC's do not prepare. Mine bought no oil or torches, since they thought it was gonna be a short excusion. The Mage too Magic Missiles, and Orb spells, no area of effect. They wound up jumping on the sarcophogus, and the Hexblade tried to attack it, not thinking weapons would do no damage. His first swing, he actually rolled a "natural" 20, after I said nothing happened, then the Halfling Bard said, lets throw some oil on it, alas, I may have been tough, but since noone bought oil. Noone had oil. They then took full run actions, as did the Hexblade who was getting muched on...I gave him another round of damage, and ruled that they could outrun the swarm, since all had light armor, and there was a dead Mad Slasher the swarm could turn on...
Since my players have had some experience with swarms and living spells, they were prepared with flasks of oil and torches. as a new DM, it might be a good idea to have an NPC from town (ran by you) go with the characters who has 'some supplies that no one else thought to bring'. This is an effective way to help the players along, without being too invasive. Also, drop hints as to the 'flamability' of the spiderwebs in the stairwell connecting areas 4 and 7. Swarms only move at 20ft, so the PC's could head for the long stairwell, and as a readied action light it up when the swarm hits. since the slasher has some intelligence the characters will have to deal with it after the flames die down (which could take sometime, as the descriptive text emphasizes their density). Have fun and good luck!
Thanks. One question, what is the Hexblade?
The Hexblade is a new base class (like paladin or ranger), which means it has a 20 level progression, introduced in Complete Warrior. Each book in the "Complete" series introduced 3 new base classes. The Hexblade is a non-good, light fighter who will gain arcane casting similar to the divine casting gained by paladins. The class also grants other special abilities, including the ability to curse his opponents. Skip Williams covered some tips for players playing Hexblades in his Character Class column last month, and the description includes some idea of the flavor of the class.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20050623a
I decided that the abandoned building wasn't so abandoned, rather it was occupied by a goblin or sumsuch. This is were my question finally comes in, what would be a good monster to put here? I like the idea of a goblin, but I'm not sure it fits with the rest of the setting. This probably depends on what I populate the hills with, so suggestions are again welcome.
In my second group, there was a goblin squatting in the abandoned building ... but it was one of the PCs!
3)...and lastly, I was wondering what swarm, in your experience, proved the easiest for the PC's to defeat. I want to populate the 2nd story of the PC's hq with a small weak swarm so they would have some experience before facing it off with the beetles. I was originally thinking spiders, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to go.
The easiest swarm would be a rat swarm, because they are not immuned to weapon damage, being a swarm of tiny creatures. But that won't teach the important lesson about swarms, viz. that swarms of diminutive or fine creatures are immune to weapon damage.
Honestly, the beetle swarm is easier than a spider swarm would be, because the strength damage done by the spiders will be difficult for 1st-level characters to shake off afterwards.
If you're characters don't have alchemical weapons (or a sorceror with burning hands), I suggest nerfing the swarm a bit, by giving it only 5 hp. They can learn what works on that swarm, and then face the full 9 hp swarm later.
Another swarm-nerfing possibility would be to make the acid damage just 1 hp instead of 1d4.